


All The Words He Should Have Said

by Brieeze01



Category: MDZS, Mo Dao Zu Shi, The Founder of Diabolism, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Dark Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Did I Mention Angst?, Drunk Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Drunk Sex, Drunk Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Emotions, Eventual Fluff, Gentle Kissing, Gentle Sex, Gentleness, Grief/Mourning, Heartache, Kissing, Lack of Communication, Longing, Love, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī Has Feelings, M/M, Making Love, Making Out, Oral Sex, POV Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Possessive Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Regrets, Rimming, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, Soft Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Sorrow, Star-crossed, Stolen Moments, Top Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Bottom Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, True Love, Yunmeng, Yílíng Lǎozǔ Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, angst and love, inability to communicate, unable to speak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brieeze01/pseuds/Brieeze01
Summary: In a moment of insanity, of fleeting madness, Lan Zhan took that offered cup full of mind numbing liquor. He took it knowing full well its effects, knowing full well with it he would give in to the crushing clawing need that burned in his veins. That overwhelming desire to kiss and possess Wei Ying for his own.The hot, blistering kiss they shared later that night was inevitable just like the prickling, irritating way they interacted with each other. Every harsh word just as intense as the kiss that burned their mouths.When Lan WangJi had found himself in the passionate, irrational embrace of the YiLing Patriarch, he had no idea how he had gotten there; the hard, velvety press of those clever lips against him had robbed him of his mind, of any semblance of reason he could have ever had.But as soon as he realized those red lips against his, he was unable to do anything else but kiss back against that hot mouth. Kiss Wei Ying with a fire that would have alarmed him if he had been thinking clearly. Instead he surrendered himself to his desire, to the desire to possess this man who seemed so intangible, so transient and so completely untouchable.
Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Comments: 90
Kudos: 488





	1. Yunmeng

**Author's Note:**

> So I have no idea what possessed me to write this.... I was listening to this song and I got all up in my feelings so I decided to write this stolen moment of passion between the YiLing Laozu and Lan Zhan right on the heels of the one time they had met in Yunmeng right after the Sunshot Campaign. It's bittersweet and it hurt my heart but it's also kind of beautiful when you think about the happy ending they will have 13 years later. I hope you like it and I'd love to know your feedback, comments, critiques, kudos or whatever~

Lan Zhan blinked into the darkness of the room, his vision blurry and faint as he noticed dimly the warm, soft body against his. He looked around for a moment, registering the same four walls and black wood table he recognized from the night before in a hazy observation as his arms curled even tighter dragging that warm body closer as his nose filled with that subtle rich scent of fire and wood that Wei Ying seemed to exude. 

Wei Ying was hot, his body giving off a scent full of warmth and incense, a veritable bonfire in his nose. He was as bold in his scent as he was in real life, nothing but crackling fire and Lan Zhan turned to look, his golden eyes soft with tenderness and melancholy as they trailed over his face pillowed on his shoulder. 

He traced the pale skin of Wei Ying’s cheek so soft and innocent in his sleep, as though he was so much younger, the harsh, cold lines that framed his mouth and painted him as the YiLing Laozu absent as he lay in Lan Zhan’s arms.

It was early, so very early in the morning, the dawn a distant thought as he took a moment to cuddle that warm, hot body against his. It was such an incredible feeling that it felt almost unbelievable. Wei Ying in his arms almost a passing fantasy as though there was no way it could possibly be real.

Lan Zhan awoke minutely as that unreal body seemed to press against his in response, a softly murmured hum almost vibrating against his chest as Wei Ying seemed to curl tighter into him, his body one long plane against his own with a subtle caress of his long legs as they stretched further to thread between his as a soft, soft sigh slipped from his lips. 

Those lips, the very definition of sin, full and provocative with a seductive cupid’s bow that made Lan Zhan's heart beat faster, that robbed him of his will and self control; so reminiscent of one of the demons of passion he had read about before in one of the Lan’s obscure tomes. 

Wei Ying, the YiLing Laozu, the patriarch of demonic cultivation, the most feared and reviled human being in the whole wide world lay in his arms vulnerable and open as he slept. His pale face slack and his arms wrapped around Lan Zhan’s broad body, his arms firm even in his sleep as though he couldn’t bear to part with the man who lay against him.

And Lan WangJi felt the same. He felt that same unbearable dread as dawn drifted closer and closer, as it came to steal this stolen night back from them. Lan Zhan swallowed heavily, melancholy drifting over him, that soft edge of deep sadness washing over him from his head to his toes as he felt it profoundly; that creeping dawn that would pull him away from Wei Ying, this night forever lost to them. He curled so completely around the YiLing Patriarch in his arms as he vaguely remembered how he had gotten there in the first place, the pounding in his temples fading as their night of passion swept over him again. 

~*~

_“HanGuang-Jun.”_

_Suddenly, however, from ahead of him came a young, grinning girl dressed in vibrant colors. In a hurry, she brushed shoulders with him, but suddenly tossed something toward his body._

_Nimbly, Lan WangJi caught the object. He looked down to find the bud of a flower as white as snow._

_The bud was delicate and fresh, having gathered some dew. As Lan WangJi maintained his silence, another slender figure approached from in front of him. With a wave of her hand, a small, blue flower was tossed at him. It was aiming for his chest, but ended up on his shoulder. Lan WangJi caught it as well. When he turned to look, the woman giggled before running away without even a hint of embarrassment._

_The third time was a younger girl, who wore her hair in double-buns. Hopping over, in her arms she held a bunch of sprigs dotted with red buds. She fled as soon as she threw them toward his chest._

_One after another, Lan WangJi had already gathered a bundle of colorful flowers, though he still stood expressionlessly in the middle of the streets. All of the cultivators who recognized HanGuang-Jun didn’t dare laugh even if they wanted to. They pretended to be serious, but their eyes kept on lingering. The ordinary people who didn’t recognize him, however, had already started to point at him. As Lan WangJi pondered with downcast eyes, he suddenly felt something weigh onto his head. He raised his hand. A pink medicinal peony, at the peak of its bloom, had landed flawlessly on the side of his head._

_From on top of a building came a grinning voice, “Lan Zhan—ah, no, HanGuang-Jun—what a coincidence!”_

_Lan WangJi looked up to see an airy pavilion lined with layers and layers of gauze curtains. A black-robed man lay on his side over a red lacquer divan. One hand of his slender body dangled down, holding a fine liquor jar made of black clay. Half of the jar’s crimson tassel wrapped around his arm, while the other half swayed back and forth in the air._

_Seeing Wei WuXian’s face, the disciples who were watching the scene all grew somewhat uncomfortable. Everyone knew that the YiLing Patriarch and HanGuang-Jun didn’t have a good relationship. When they fought together during the Sunshot Campaign, they’d often begin to argue. Nobody knew what could happen this time. As of the moment, they didn’t even bother to put on a polite pretense anymore, staring at the two as hard as they could._

_Lan WangJi didn’t leave with a cold face, contrary to their conjectures. He only said, “It is you.”_

_Wei WuXian, “It’s me! Someone who does such a ridiculous thing has to be me. Where did you find the time to come to Yunmeng? If you’re not busy, come up here and have a drink?”_

_A few girls encircled him, all cramped onto the divan, laughing at those down below, “Yeah, Young Master, come up here and have a drink!”_

_The girls were the ones who tossed flowers at him earlier on. There was no need to say who was the person that told them to do such a thing._

_Lowering his head, Lan WangJi turned around and proceeded to leave. Seeing that there was no reaction, Wei WuXian wasn’t surprised at all. With a click of his tongue, he rolled down the divan and drank a mouthful of the liquor in his jar. Yet, a few moments later, a series of footsteps came, lighter than heavy, calmer than rushed._

_With steady steps, Lan WangJi walked up the stairs and parted the curtains as he entered. The bejeweled strings clinked crisply, almost melodically._

_He placed the bundle of flowers that had hit him onto the small table, “Your flowers.”_

_Wei WuXian slanted his body until he could reach the table, “You’re welcome. I’ll give them to you. These are your flowers now.”_

_Lan WangJi, “Why?”_

_Wei WuXian, “Why not? I just wanted to see how you’d react to such a thing.”_

_Lan WangJi, “Ridiculous.”_

_Wei WuXian, “Ridiculous is exactly what I am. Or else I wouldn’t have been so bored as to get you up here… Hey, hey, hey, don’t go. You’re already here. You won’t have a few sips?”_

In a moment of insanity, of fleeting madness, he took that offered cup full of mind numbing liquor. He took it knowing full well its effects, knowing full well with it he would give in to the crushing clawing need that burned in his veins. That overwhelming desire to kiss and possess Wei Ying for his own. 

The hot, blistering kiss they shared later that night was inevitable just like the prickling, irritating way they interacted with each other. Every harsh word just as intense as the kiss that burned their mouths and tied their heads into knots. 

Lan WangJi had found himself in the passionate, irrational embrace of the YiLing Patriarch. He had no idea how he had gotten there, nor any idea how they ended up in one of the inn’s vacant rooms, the hard, velvety press of those clever lips against him had robbed him of any semblance of reason he could have ever had. 

He had no idea how they ended up the way they did but as soon as he realized those red lips against his, he was unable to do anything else but kiss back against that hot mouth. Kiss Wei Ying with a fire that would have alarmed him if he had been thinking clearly. Instead he surrendered himself to his desire, to the desire to possess this man who seemed so intangible and so completely untouchable. 

He had kissed those lips with a passion unfathomable and Wei Ying had responded with a fire Lan Zhan could have never expected. It overwhelmed him, this hot wet press of lips and tongues that robbed him of his mind so completely everything faded away, everything but Wei Ying and his blistering mouth that threatened to burn down his world around him and leave him in ashes. 

He kissed Wei Ying with all the bottled up frustration of years of longing. Years of craving this man. 

Lan Zhan slipped his hands into those long, dark locks and dragged his tongue against the one along his. Pulling Wei Ying against him as if those transient touches would tie the man to him, bind the man to him for always. 

He kissed Wei Ying as if he was air and he was drowning, as though Wei Ying was his only lifeline and in a way he was. Lan Zhan had nothing else to anchor him around the mind blowing press of lips, the mind numbing arc of electricity that jumped from Wei Ying’s mouth to his own. 

They were like fire and water most times, Wei Ying’s demonic cultivation a constant wedge between them. But in this moment, in this dark, heady moment that wedge was gone, nothing but unfettered passion between them and Lan Zhan let go of all the rules and regulations that made this moment impossible. 

He threw off the fetters of his sect, the binding laws of the band around his forehead. He let Wei Ying drag the long, tapered tips of his fingers along the white satin of his headband and slide it off, gently removing the last bit of Lan Zhan’s restraint as they succumbed to their passions.

Lan Zhan tilted his head then, burying his hands in Wei Ying’s long, loose locks dragging his own red ribbon from his hair with a slow tug as he pressed their hips together, their cocks curving long and hard against each other. The wine swirling with their attractions around them and through them. 

Lan Zhan grabbed Wei Ying, wrapping his broad hands around the other man’s slim waist as he walked them backwards until his knees hit the soft edge of the bed, their mouths devouring each other with a passion that begged the question of how long. How long had they felt this way, felt this unfathomable attraction. Was it from the Xuanwu of Slaughter? Those days in the cave had seemed so poignant. As if they shared a moment between them that could never be replaced. Or was it all the way back at the Lan Library, Wei Ying’s wild laughter as that destroyed porn book fluttered in pieces around them. That moment had haunted Lan Zhan for months. Months of imagining pushing that carefree boy down and taking him. Taking him with passion until Wei Ying gasped and screamed in pleasure, his voice filling the library and dragging Lan Zhan deeper into the madness that was his obsession, his irrational need to possess this boy and have him for his very own. 

Or was it even further back, all the way to that night they first met on the rooftops of the Cloud Recesses. That night Lan Zhan had first seen that brilliant smile and those witty eyes. The way Wei Ying’s clever grin had curved his lips and the way his grey eyes had sparkled with mischief. 

Lan Zhan didn’t know. He didn’t know when this uncontrollable fascination had taken him hostage. He only knew that in this dark room at an inn in Yunmeng, Wei Ying stood pressed against him. His body as tight against his own as possible, his hands in his hair and his lips molded to his as Lan Zhan leaned forward pushing Wei WuXian back into the bed behind them.

Lan Zhan pressed the YiLing Laozu further back into the soft bed, his body pushing into his with a heavy possessive weight. He kissed those lips with unbridled passion, licking his tongue and biting his lips reveling in every hot, groaning moan Wei Ying released. 

He slid his hands across his chest over the heavy black robes he wore, tugging them loose even as his head spun under the hot press of Wei Ying’s lips and the strong wine that left him dizzy and almost weightless. Wei Ying kissed him back almost desperately. As if Lan Zhan was the air he needed to breathe, his own hands curling into the prim and proper Lan Sect robes. The YiLing Laozu slowly pulled them loose sliding them from Lan Zhan’s shoulders. His hot hands slipping into those heavy robes with blistering heat. 

He caressed Lan Zhan’s chest, sliding down to his waist before gasping wildly as Lan Zhan pulled back from their hot wet kiss with a sharp nip at his lower lip. Lan Zhan couldn’t tell up from down, the hazy spell the wine had woven over him making it impossible for him to think of anything but Wei Ying and his hot, seductive mouth. 

Lan Zhan nipped that swollen lower lip against his before he slid lower kissing hot open mouthed kisses against Wei Ying’s throat. He laved that pale, delicate skin with his tongue before laying a sucking, possessive bite into the base. He sucked another hot pink petal against the skin that tasted like the sweetest honey on his tongue, arching his hips and rubbing provocatively against the hard ridge in Wei Ying’s pants. 

He moaned heavily as Wei Ying pressed back, his hoarse husky moan falling from his lips with a hot breath against his mouth. 

Lan Zhan moaned back breathlessly. Every move, every sound Wei Ying made was like fire inside him, long arcs of electricity running down his spine as he felt himself grow hotter, harder under the seductive spell Wei WuXian had woven around them.

“La…...Lan…..mmmm…...Lan….haaaa!” Wei Ying panted in his passion as Lan Zhan moved down his body, pausing to tug the top of his robe off. He pulled that heavy black fabric aside and laid a sucking kiss to his nipple that threw Wei Ying into a maelstrom of desire. His chest arching into the press and his swollen mouth falling open with another heavy moan. 

“HAAAANNNNN!” Wei Ying gasped long and loud that velvety voice burning Lan Zhan’s ears as he swallowed heavily around the sound. It was so erotic, so sultry that Lan Zhan felt a shiver dance up his spine and he lifted his hand to the other pink bud. He caressed it, trailing the rough calloused tips of his fingers around Wei Ying’s nipple even as he groaned again, the other man bucking his hips up jerkily as he moaned again even louder than before. 

Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps it was just Wei Ying but Lan Zhan couldn’t get a handle on himself. He couldn’t focus past the dizzying cloud that Wei WuXian wrapped around him as he leaned back up quickly yanking those black robes off. His arms bumping into Wei Ying’s as he did the same to Lan Zhan’s prim and proper white clothes. 

They threw their robes off hurriedly before pressing their bodies together again, their cocks hot and hard against each other as their twin moans filled the room. Lan Zhan dragged his palms down Wei Ying’s body engraving every plane and dip of his muscles into his memory as though he could keep Wei WuXian for his very own with every heavy press of his hands. 

He slid his palms down that heaving chest along his shivering belly to those sharp, angular hips, those hips that caught his attention immediately and he moved suddenly, lowering his mouth to the sharp cuts of those hips. He mouthed the left one, his hand coming up to knead the right one with his firm, insistent fingers. 

He couldn’t seem to get a grip on himself, his head tumbling over and over as another one of Wei Ying’s moans tripped down his spine and he laid a sucking bruise into the hip against his mouth before he turned his head to gaze at the hard cock curving up long and hard next to him. 

“Mmm….haaa…...aaaaahhhnnn…..Lan…….La……..Lan Zhan…..pl….plea…...se……” the YiLing Laozu panted and gasped erratically as he tossed his head under the rush of pleasure he had never felt before. He didn’t know exactly what he was asking for, all he knew was that he needed more. He needed more from Lan Zhan. Whatever it was that possessed Lan WangJi and placed him in Wei Ying’s bed was infusing the room with an inescapable, almost suffocating heat. 

It was almost impossible to breathe under the tension between them, the need they felt for each other almost physical as they panted and groaned and moaned together and Lan Zhan leaned up, releasing Wei Ying’s hip with a loud sucking pop.

He leaned back to sit on his knees as he looked at the man under him. Wei Ying was the single sexiest thing he had ever seen. His long, jet black hair spread across the pillows like spilled ink, his cheeks flushed and his chest heaving. His swollen mouth was open and panting as he let the delicate pink tip of his tongue slide along his lips for a moment. His grey eyes foggy with alcohol and hazy with lust as he canted his hips up wordlessly. 

He didn’t speak, his voice nothing more than heavy moans as he stared into Lan Zhan’s eyes. His own a stormy grey full of vague needs and desires. There was a wealth of words in his eyes, a wealth of unspoken words that Lan Zhan couldn’t read. It was so much more than lust and desire that darkened those grey eyes, something profound lingered in his gaze, something heavy and nameless curled through those depths and Lan Zhan, powerless against it leaned down and kissed his lips again.

He let his hand move forward grasping Wei Ying’s hard length as he swallowed his answering moan wracking his mind for what to do next. He foggily dragged up long forgotten memories of those little yellow books he had read in the wee hours of the morning. Books he had stolen from the street peddlers in Caiyi town, too ashamed to buy them outright. 

Another sin to add to his list of sins. Most people thought him honorable and righteous, the pinnacle of nobility. The prime example to follow and strive towards but Lan Zhan knew better. He knew he was just as simple as everyone else full of temptations and sin after sin that all boiled down to Wei Ying. 

Wei Ying pulled out the worst and the best in him. His strongest emotions and his deepest desires, his needs and his regrets and oh how he regretted. He regretted his baser impulses, his dark desires that had forced his hand and landed him here at this inn in Yunmeng drunk on wine and Wei Ying with his body flushed to the man who plagued his thoughts day and night. 

He was no better than anyone else, in fact he was worse, for he hid behind a facade of righteousness when deep down all he wanted, all he needed was to be here in this moment, in this room with his body bearing down on the YiLing Laozu who arched his hips into his with a mind numbing arc of electricity that threatened to white out his mind. 

He thought back again to those little yellow books trying to think past Wei Ying’s hot, breathy voice as he tried to remember what to do next. His mind settling on one image in particular as he pushed his body down further, his mouth hovering over Wei Ying’s hard cock, that jutted up from his body in a hot display of sex and lust. 

His cock was so hard it curved upwards almost kissing his belly button with a pearly trail of precum that dangled one long, thin thread. And Lan Zhan steeled himself as he poked his tongue out and caressed one long wet line across that swollen, red tip his eyes snapping up to Wei Ying’s face as the YiLing Laozu threw his head back, a positively lewd, husky moan falling from his open lips.

And Lan Zhan, powerless against him, did it again just to see that pleasure wrecked face once more. He licked, rubbing his tongue into that weeping slit, his golden eyes amber with his lust. They tracked greedy lines across Wei Ying’s face engraving every shivering, breathless gasp and moan into his memories. He would remember every single second of this stolen night between them. This wordless, passionate night they shared that would disappear like the transient wisps of early morning fog that would call him away as soon as the sun rose. This moment lost to them once the world came back into focus and demanded propriety; demanded that Lan Zhan returned to the GusuLan Sect and to the mantle of HanGuang-Jun. The title like a bitter taste in his mouth. 

He was as unworthy of it as any common demon, the taste of Wei Ying sharp in his mouth as he pushed it from his mind. Whatever his sins, whatever the cost, he _would_ pay it for this night with Wei WuXian. He would pay whatever he had to to keep this night with the man of his dreams. 

For he loved him. He loved him with the same irrationality that his father had loved the murderer of his teacher. He loved Wei WuXian with a crippling intensity that robbed him of his thoughts and stole his honor, tying his head into knots and leaving him as a common man on his knees begging for this night. Begging and pleading for the chance to hold this man in his arms as if he was his. 

Ever since that night on the rooftops, he had loved Wei Ying, loved him unreasonably and irrevocably. He was air when he needed to breathe, his laughter like the sun across the grey wash of his life, starbursts of happiness through his rule driven mind. 

And he coveted; he coveted Wei Ying, coveted every clever grin and wild laugh that threw his head back and showed the seductive curve of his neck. He stole every word that curved those full lips and filed it away in his heart as though he could somehow capture the man himself. Every slip of his robes, every sliver of skin carefully catalogued and buried in the back of his mind so he could examine it in the late nights he tossed and turned in his bed.

He was slave to Wei Ying and he followed through with that wet lick, wrapping his lips around the throbbing tip of his cock just to hear that wild voice again. He sucked it into his mouth hollowing out his cheeks as he pulled it as deeply as possible. He gazed up through the thick black fan of his lashes as he stared hungrily at Wei Ying’s face burning those fluttering lashes and those wet, swollen lips into his mind as he pulled his mouth up the long, curving length against his tongue.

He ducked his head again sucking on it when he suddenly shivered. Wei Ying threading his long, elegant fingers into his hair tugging quickly at the silver hairpiece he wore. He pulled it off easily tossing it to the floor where his pristine forehead ribbon lay discarded with their clothes.

Wei Ying dragged his hands through his loose hair grabbing the silken strands as he gasped, his hips rising up slowly to press further into his mouth, his voice falling out of him in one long, husky growl. 

“AhhhHHHHHAAAA Lan…..La…….AHHH!” Wei Ying groaned as he rolled his hips up again. He was a moaning mess, his hips bucking up over and over as he fucked Lan Zhan’s mouth. He couldn’t see properly in the darkness of the room, the wine leaving him dizzy and Lan Zhan’s mouth leaving him in pieces. He couldn’t tell up from down as he canted his hips up again and again chasing his pleasure even as his hands fisted up in those thick black locks. 

“La…...La…...ahh..haaaaaaa!” Lan Zhan stared up at him as he moved his mouth faster matching those thrusting hips as he let his hand slide up between those long, pale legs. He rubbed his thumb between the firm swells of his sexy ass to press against the pink, fluttering edge of his entrance. 

He moved his thumb again and again in heavy circles around that little hole encouraging it to loosen even as his mouth pulled faster. He moved up and down, up and down, his tongue dragging long wet lines against the cock in his mouth. 

His jaw was already tired but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop dragging those moans from Wei Ying, every breathless gasp stinging his ears and burning him up from the inside out as he continued to move his head in those long hot pulls. 

After a minute or an hour, he couldn’t tell, Lan Zhan finally pulled back with a lewd pop as he shifted again. He moved further down as he slipped his hands under Wei Ying’s thighs gently lifting them over his shoulders and Wei WuXian let him, his panting voice loud in the room as he let Lan Zhan do what he wanted; pliant and quiet as he waited for whatever he would do next. 

It was strange and uncanny to see a silent Wei Ying; a Wei Ying he was so used to seeing with flippant, clever retorts on his tongue. Instead this Wei Ying was quiet, giving in easily to whatever Lan Zhan wanted to do to him. And it was just another black mark that reminded Lan WangJi that this Wei WuXian was different from the one he knew. This Wei WuXian was the YiLing Laozu, the grandmaster of nightmares. The man who painted death with his songs, who had killed hundreds and thousands of men and women with just a few seductive notes of his ghost flute.

This man was not the bright, bubbly Wei Ying of his dreams. Rather, this man was cold and distant, his grey eyes dim and foreign. He was changed somehow, had been ever since that night he and Jiang Cheng had met him at the supervision office. Wei Ying had seemed almost a ghost himself with that pale face, eerie with an odd light he had never seen before. 

The Wei WuXian before him seemed so impossibly distant; and Lan Zhan swallowed dryly for a moment pushing that thought away as he trailed his eyes over the tempting view before him. Wei Ying was laying in front of him, his legs wide open and the gentle swells of his ass so firm and round and Lan Zhan leaned forward kissing one of those long pale thighs before he laid a sucking, possessive bite into it, his body pulling tight as Wei Ying released another heavy moan, his shoulders shivering as he slowly leaned further back into the bed, his body open and spread for Lan Zhan’s hungry mouth. 

Sliding his hands down, Lan Zhan caressed those cheeks for a moment as he nuzzled into one shivering thigh before ducking his head to watch as his hands slowly spread those cheeks revealing the tiny, fluttering hole of his entrance. He leaned forward then and dragged his tongue across it with a hot whoosh of his breath. 

“AhhhHHHHHHAAAAAAA!”

Wei Ying moaned long and loud as he felt that tongue caress him with another firm lick. Lan Zhan’s mouth was so hot, so unbearably hot as he dragged his tongue up and down the cleft in his ass over and over that pink, puckered hole. 

He licked it a few more times before he wrapped his lips around it and sucked it into his mouth, kneading it with his lips and the light press of his teeth. Then he did it again with dark satisfaction as Wei Ying’s voice rolled down his back. He was so hard, it was almost hurting, his cock long and hard between his legs but he pushed it back as he focused dimly on that wet hole in his mouth and those heavy, seductive moans. 

He pulled back to lick that swollen hole again with little flicks before pressing forward and rubbing his tongue into that fluttering entrance that was clutching gently under his attentions. He rubbed into it firmly with little pulsing thrusts of his tongue encouraging it to open up for him as he reached around that pale thigh and caught Wei Ying’s heavy cock in his fist.

He dragged his hand up and down it pausing to rub his thumb into the weeping slit as he felt that hole give under his mouth and he slid his long tongue into his ass. He pushed in as deep as he could shivering as another one of those loud broken moans caressed him and teased him making him impossibly harder as he tugged on that hot, hard cock in his hand. 

“Ah...haaaa…...aaahhhhnnn……..ahhhh!!”

He moved his fist in time to his thrusting tongue, up and down and in and out and up and down and in and out, fucking him with his mouth and rubbing him with his hand. He moved faster as he felt that body begin to tense against him as he pulled Wei Ying closer and closer to the end.

“AHHHH….huff…..AHHHNNNNGG!” Wei Ying jerked suddenly, his whole body almost jumping off the bed as he arched into Lan Zhan’s pumping fist. His whole body pulling tight as his release rushed over him leaving him gasping breathlessly. 

Lan Zhan moaned into that ass as he felt Wei Ying’s hole clutch around his tongue and he felt that pleasure as if it were his own. He dragged his fist faster, his tongue moving deeper into his ass as he worked him through his climax. He was so dizzy, his head swirling with heat and alcohol and Wei Ying; Wei Ying’s taste, his voice, his body and his pleasure threatening to drown him and after a long while he finally pulled back. He left that ass with regret as he moved back up on his knees. 

He took a moment to stare at Wei Ying in the dim light of the room, the low half moon painting them in lines of silver as it drifted in through the shutters. Wei Ying was breathtakingly beautiful. His head thrown back as he huffed, his chest heaving rapidly, his cheeks painted red with his pleasure. And Lan Zhan couldn’t do anything in that moment, his own aching need fading as he drank in the view. He stared letting his eyes trace the body of the man he loved, his amber gaze following the long planes of his sweaty body up along the graceful curve of his neck and over those blushing cheeks to meet those grey eyes.

Those impossible eyes met his with all the force of a typhoon. Those unreadable eyes almost electric with the haze of his pleasure and something else more profound. There was something in Wei Ying’s eyes that Lan Zhan desperately wanted to understand. He needed to know, he craved to understand this Wei WuXian, to peer behind that cold gaze and touch that ever elusive heart.

But words failed him as they always did when it came to Wei Ying. Since the night they first met on the rooftops, he had never been able to express himself clearly. All the words he wished he could say trapped in the back of his throat, almost suffocating him. What he wouldn’t give in this moment to be able to speak, speak all the tumbling emotions in his heart. 

He ached to express himself, to string the right words together to tell him just how much he loved him, had always loved him. To tell him just how deeply his beautiful eyes moved him, how his smile lit up his whole world, how his laughter painted his dull grey life in a rainbow of colors. He ached with a pain that was almost physical to say something, anything that would push that distant, unreadable haze from those eyes to see them sparkle again, see them bright and bold with his carefree happiness. 

But he swallowed dryly instead as they stared at each other and Lan Zhan pushed that aching need away as he realized words would fail him again tonight. He leaned forward slowly half expecting Wei Ying to push him away, those grey eyes so unfathomable he didn’t know what to think. 

But Wei WuXian wrapped his arms around his neck and met his mouth again letting Lan Zhan kiss him. Allowing that broad hand to come up and cradle his flushed cheek. He kissed Wei Ying gently, softly, deeply as though his lips could express the torrent of emotions welling up inside him. They kissed lazily, slowly; a simmering passion caught on their tongues and moving back and forth between their mouths. 

“Mmm” Wei Ying moaned against him as he slid his cum covered hand down their bodies to slip between his legs again. He pushed one long, slick finger between his cheeks to press against his hole still wet from his mouth. He slipped that finger in thrusting it in and out as he continued to make love to Wei Ying’s mouth, his other hand gently holding that soft cheek, his thumb rubbing soft caresses into his flushed skin.

He kissed him sweetly, passionately and delicately as if he could somehow convey all the tumbling feelings rushing through his chest without words. Then he pressed another finger into him, his breath stuttering in his chest as that hole clutched around him. It was so wet and hot and Lan Zhan swallowed heavily as he reined himself in. 

He was so close to his breaking point, his cock so hard it curved up against his body, the tip almost kissing his belly button but for some reason this kiss they shared seemed more important. 

Something about this kiss seemed poignant, profound as though it was his confession, as though every flickering feeling in his heart was on display, his love for Wei Ying apparent in every soft caress of his lips and tongue. 

After what felt like an eon, Lan Zhan pulled back with regret, leaving that hot, wet mouth as he shifted back onto his knees, kneeling between Wei Ying’s open trembling thighs. He slid an arm under his leg hooking it with his elbow as he positioned him, letting the swollen red tip of his throbbing cock barely kiss that pink fluttering rim as he glanced up again pausing with a shock as Wei Ying spoke for the first time since they had tumbled into this room in some random inn in Yunmeng.

“What are you doing Lan Zhan?” 

Lan Zhan considered this for a moment, stilling as he met those unreadable eyes. Wei Ying was looking at him with that dark, closed off gaze and it became clear that he was asking something so much more profound. 

He tilted his head a little, staring deeply into those golden eyes, that nameless something in his gaze a heavy, heavy weight between them. Lan Zhan swallowed dryly as he met those grey eyes, a million words running through his mind, each one inadequate as he let that silence stretch on.

After a moment, an hour, maybe even an eon he dragged his voice out of him with effort, hoping for once in his life that the words he so desperately needed would come and he spoke with a deep, hoarse voice.

“I’m going to make love to you.” 

Wei Ying was silent under him, his eyes dark and unfathomable as they gazed up at him and for another long moment, silence blanketed the room.

“I’m not worth this….” 

Wei Ying spoke at last, his hand gesturing vaguely to the white Lan ribbon on the floor and Lan Zhan understood immediately what he was talking about. Wei Ying had to know what this moment meant to someone from the Lan Sect. He had to know how important something like this was to Lan Zhan. 

“You are.” 

“I can’t…..I can’t be that for you Lan Zhan.” His voice was so soft with the delicate edge of a deep and heartbreaking sadness that Lan Zhan paused even as he continued to stare into those unreadable eyes. 

“Can’t or won’t?”

“....I…...can’t…” Wei Ying whispered into the darkness as that nameless weight fell into his voice and Lan Zhan leaned forward pressing their foreheads together, their eyes never leaving each other’s.

“Why?” He asked just as softly, staring into those eyes as he begged for an answer; begged for the truth of whatever that weight was that seemed to drag Wei WuXian down, stealing the stars from his eyes and chaining him in some nameless pain he couldn’t understand.

The silence between them this time was thick as Wei Ying met his gaze with those unreadable eyes and that silence stretched on and on around them. For whatever reason, the YiLing Laozu just couldn’t seem to form words, his eyes trying to convey something, convey whatever it was that had killed the light in his eyes and threw impenetrable walls around his heart.

“I…..just can’t Lan Zhan, I would…….if…...if I could….” he trailed off at last, his voice so quiet and so very sad, melancholy infusing those whispering words between them, nothing more than a soft breath against Lan Zhan’s lips.

“Doesn’t matter, you are the only one.”

Wei Ying looked away for a moment, his eyes tracing that Lan Sect ribbon lying with their clothes. He swallowed heavily before looking back up at Lan Zhan.

“Are…..are you sure?” He spoke with that same, deep, soft, soft voice and for the first time Lan Zhan could read those beautiful grey eyes. 

A wealth of sorrow and vulnerability looked back at him, so endless and dark; those breathtaking eyes so raw and fragile and Lan Zhan closed that little bit of distance between them, pressing a light kiss to his lips. Their kiss was delicate and gentle, a barely there caress against his mouth and Wei Ying shivered under it even as he met those golden eyes. They stared at each other as they kissed, this moment so profound between them. 

Lan Zhan breathed love into his mouth with light touches and soft presses as though he could take all that pain, all that weight from those grey eyes and carry it himself. 

“Let me make love to you?” He whispered, his breath falling between their moving mouths like a sigh and Wei Ying pulled back a little, his grey eyes wet as tiny, glittering tears collected on his long lashes. He looked so lost, so small there under him and Lan Zhan ached. He ached seeing it; he ached as though it was a physical blow to see this proud, strong, beautiful man so fragile as though he would crumble to dust in his arms. 

“O…...only for tonight” he whispered back and Lan Zhan gathered him up in his arms to kiss him again. He kissed him as though he could lay love on his tongue, and it was with this soft, sweet, sad kiss that he made love to Wei Ying, made love to this man who held his heart in his hand. 

Lan Zhan pushed himself between those long, pale legs to angle his hot, hard length up, the swollen, dripping tip of his cock nudging that soft, pink hole. He pressed firmly, slowly as he felt it give under him until it was with one more firm press that he slid fully into Wei Ying’s tight, wet body. 

“Ahh….hhaaaaa!” Wei Ying moaned, his arms wrapping themselves around Lan Zhan’s neck as he gasped, his voice hot and breathy in his ear as those heavy hips pulled back slowly.

Lan Zhan tugged back in a long, slow glide before pushing back in and then he did it again and then again. He set a gentle rhythm, using his body to show Wei Ying his heart as he made love to the man who had taught him what love meant.

He slid his arms under those long legs and pulled them up changing the angle, his hard cock pressing suddenly deeper and Wei Ying jerked with a loud, stilted gasp, his hole clenching tightly around Lan Zhan and dragging a deep, guttural moan of pleasure from his lips. 

“AHHNNN!” Wei Ying gasped again, his body arching into the feeling as Lan Zhan hit something deep in his body that sent lights sparkling across his eyes and he threw his head back into the pillows as Lan Zhan did it again. 

And then again.

Lan Zhan pitched his hips straight into that spot, dizzy under Wei Ying’s tight clutching body and those wild husky moans falling from his lips as he bucked back and forth, in deep and back and in deep again.

His hips moved faster and then faster as he leaned forward again, plunging his tongue into Wei Ying’s hot open mouth as they panted and moaned and groaned under this mind blowing pleasure between them. 

This was not sex, this, this between them was love. Even if Wei Ying said no, even if he said he couldn’t, it would change nothing for Lan Zhan. He had meant every word he said. 

Wei Ying was the only one and would be the only one for this life and the next and he spent the rest of that stolen night in Yunmeng showing him the shape of his heart, Wei Ying’s beautiful eyes tracking long, quiet trails of tears down his flushed cheeks as he knew, with profound clarity that this love, this pure love was not for him, could never be for him, not with all that black blood on his hands.

He was not worthy of Lan Zhan’s heart no matter how much he wanted it. And he gasped and moaned and cried out in pleasure under him, his body growing tighter and tighter under those thrusting hips, Lan Zhan’s hot mouth swallowing his voice, his body moving over and over into him as though he could somehow fuse them together, trap them together for always. 

But it was not to be, could never be and it was with tears in their eyes and pleasure arcing along their bodies that they found release in one another, their passion almost dim in the wake of the vortex of unspoken words and emotions they passed back and forth between their panting, gasping mouths. 

~*~

Lan Zhan stared at the man in his arms, Wei Ying was so beautiful, the barest edge of twilight bathing him in a silvery glow as dawn teased the edges of the room. He lifted his hand letting his knuckles caress that soft cheek laying on his chest remembering how it had been flushed with passion even as he felt his breath catch in his chest. So many words trapped like a lump in his throat.

And he felt a deep and profound melancholy clench tight around his heart as he remembered that soft, soft voice. 

_“I can’t…..I can’t be that for you Lan Zhan.”_

Lan Zhan looked away, his downcast eyes full of sorrow as he slowly pulled himself with effort from their messy bed. He was loath to let go of this night, of this man; leaving his warm arms was a painful ache in his chest but 5am was close and whether he liked it or not he had duties to attend to, juniors to train and a sect to help rebuild.

He pulled his clothes on mechanically, his eyes drifting again and again to the beautiful man in that bed, his long hair thrown across the pillows, his body warm in the wake of their passion. In all honesty, he had just fallen asleep and Lan Zhan didn’t have the heart or the words to face him after that stolen night. 

He shoved his feet into his boots with a heavy sigh snagging his forehead ribbon from the floor. He pulled it up pausing as he stopped mid motion. He stared at that ribbon for a moment, a long forgotten memory drifting over him. 

_“WangJi you must wear this ribbon. It means to regulate oneself. Our sect’s forehead ribbon is a special object that is very, very personal and sensitive. One cannot easily give another permission to touch it, one cannot take it off as they please. It is prohibited. Our founder Lan An, has said that one can only let go of all regulations when they are with the one they love and cherish. Do you understand?_

Lan Zhan swallowed around the memory remembering the stern lines of his shifu’s face, his father’s brother who had raised him like a son when his own father had left them, secluding himself away from the world simply unable to force his heart to accept the murderer he loved and the regret that would forever haunt him until the day he died. 

And WangJi was no better, no different. He knew he would love Wei WuXian for all time through this life and the next, through whatever hell that kept them apart. Lan Zhan could no more change his heart than he could stop his own breath and he turned back to the long, prone form of the man he loved with all his heart. 

He stepped back towards the bed and wound his ribbon around Wei Ying’s hand. He slipped it between those long fingers remembering the feeling of them in his hair as he passed the satin over his palm and around his wrist. He didn’t tie it letting it just lay there, a silent promise that one day, one day he would have those words he needed so badly. One day he would come back and bare his heart; some way, somehow he would find a way to push that horrible darkness from Wei Ying’s eyes.

He left a soft, soft kiss on his gently parted lips before stepping out of that room, the mantle of HanGuang-Jun laying across his shoulders like a bar of iron as he wrapped those rules and regulations around himself again, his face falling back into that empty mask he wore as though no emotions ran through his heart; nothing further from the truth. 

As he stepped into the street in the early morning dawn, he left his heart behind in that bed but how could he know what hell awaited them. That in the next year, Nightless City would claim them and the Burial Mounds would steal his Wei Ying away leaving Lan Zhan with nothing but bitter, suffocating regrets at all the words he should have said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yea.....all the efn feels, argh my heart. T___T I hope you guys enjoyed it and thanks for reading. Btw all the quoted text and spellings are from the ExiledRebelsScanlations translation of the novel.


	2. YiLing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know lol I guess I just needed to write more bittersweet love so I wrote another chapter. This is their last stolen moment in YiLing when Lan Zhan meets up with Wei WuXian and A-Yuan. I hope you like it and I'd love to read your feedback.

The second time he found himself in that impossible embrace it was in the deep, dark recesses of the Demon Slaughtering Cave, the smell of blood vague in their noses and their bodies so tightly pressed together not even a sliver of air could pass between them.

Uncle Four’s fruit wine was rich on their tongues as they passed that taste back and forth between their mouths. Wei Ying’s elegant fingers once again buried in his hair and Lan Zhan took a sharp breath through his nose as his foggy awareness suddenly grew sharp. He fell back into his body with a snap as Wei Ying’s lips trailed arcs of fire down his neck, sucking and nipping little stinging bites into his heated skin.

Lan Zhan gasped as he wrapped his hands around those slim hips again, almost stunned as he felt Wei Ying push him back towards the crude pile of blankets the YiLing Patriarch called his bed. The dim, cool air of the cave pulling goosebumps from his hot skin as he felt Wei Ying tug at his robes with quick jerks of his hand. 

“Wei Ying…?” Lan Zhan asked a little hazily as he tried to understand what was happening.

But Wei Ying said nothing, pressing another burning kiss to his lips again and Lan Zhan’s dim sanity disappeared, the dull, metallic smell of blood that infused this cave disappearing under the scent of bonfires that filled his nose, that scent so uniquely Wei WuXian. He slid his hands under Wei Ying’s firm thighs hauling him up into his arms as he walked forward until he pressed them against the hard unyielding wall of this chilly, dark cave, the gossamer threads of resentful energy trailing around their ankles, brushing the edges of their awareness.

Wei Ying was tying his head into knots as he pushed his body even closer, his long legs wrapping around Lan Zhan’s waist with an arch of his hips as he rubbed his hot core into Lan Zhan’s hard stomach.

“Mmmm La…..Lan…….hmmm” Wei Ying moaned breathily into the darkness when Lan Zhan’s broad hands slid down further to grab the fleshy, firm cheeks of his ass in a heavy possessive grip. He was already dizzy. He almost couldn’t breathe with Wei Ying’s tongue in his mouth but he didn’t care. 

Nothing mattered in this moment but Wei Ying and his hot, passion filled voice. He didn’t care about the sounds they made, about the million and one reasons he should not be here; not be here with the grandmaster of nightmares, not be here letting himself be devoured by the demon that was Wei WuXian. The cultivation world and their judgement was a far away concern that paled in comparison to the heat Wei Ying breathed into his mouth. 

This night was like a dream, a hazy, foggy dream and Lan Zhan wondered if perhaps he was still asleep tossing and turning fitfully in his bed in the Cloud Recesses, his mind painting haunting fantasies of Wei WuXian’s cold, dark gaze and his impossibly hot, willing body across his thoughts in a desperate attempt to remember that stolen night in Yunmeng. 

That heady, heavy night they had shared so many months ago, all those words swirling around them and almost suffocating them with all the things they couldn’t say. That night he had breathed love into Wei Ying’s mouth and sought to show him every flickering feeling in his heart. 

And though Wei Ying had kissed him back and allowed him to make love to him in that dark room, he had been so, so very far away; a heavy nameless weight pulling his heart down, surrounding that heart with impenetrable walls. And tonight it was no different. 

Wei WuXian was bottled fire in his arms, tension swirling around them as they kissed and kissed and kissed with wild desperation. A desperation rife with those same unspoken words that neither one could say.

Lan Zhan shifted to grind his hips between Wei Ying’s open legs, a trembling shiver running up his spine as he tasted that breathless moan in his mouth. He was so far gone under this passion between them, under the powerful wine in his blood. He couldn’t tell up from down, light from dark, the smell of fire and blood in his nose, resentful energy brushing the edges of his perception. 

A ferocious corpse or a swarm of demons could have come upon them and Lan Zhan wouldn’t have even been able to see them so trapped he was in this impossible, inconceivable embrace. 

“Ha….haa.a…….La…...Lan…….mmmmm” Wei Ying moaned heavily rubbing back against that hard cock he could feel in Lan Zhan’s pants. He rolled his hips up and back and up and back teasing them both through their heavy robes. 

It was too much, that teasing press was too much for Lan Zhan and he dropped Wei Ying to his feet pulling his robes open with an quick, erratic tug. 

“Mmmm…..ahh..…..La…..Lan Zhan” Wei Ying panted as he pulled and pushed those heavy Lan Sect robes off, dropping them to the dusty floor of the cave he called home. That thought a bitter taste in Lan Zhan’s mouth as he remembered the ramshackled wooden houses cobbled together with scraps that lined the clearing outside this cool, damp cave that smelled vaguely of blood. The long thin threads of resentful energy surrounding them and infusing the very air they breathed.

~*~

_“Lan Zhan.”_

_Lan WangJi looked at him. Wei WuXian, “You’re here anyways, so why not have a seat inside?”_

_The two walked up to a cave on the mountain, surrounded by chilly winds._

_Lan WangJi, “The Demon-Slaughtering Cave?”_

_Wei WuXian, “That’s right. I came up with the name. How is it?”_

_Lan WangJi said nothing._

_Wei WuXian, “I know. In your heart, you’re definitely saying ‘not very good.’ After the news got out, I picked up on some of the comments as well, saying that I’m someone who cultivates the demonic path to begin with—I’m the demon myself, so how could I be so shameless as to call my den the Demon-Slaughtering Cave?”_

_Lan WangJi didn’t comment. The two had already walked inside the cave. Wei WuXian’s laughter echoed throughout the empty walls, “But in reality, all of them are wrong. What I actually meant with this name is not at all what they interpreted it as.”_

_Lan WangJi, “How come?”_

_Wei WuXian, “Simple. I often sleep like I’m dead inside of this cave. A cave that kills a demon through slumber—wouldn’t it be the Demon-Slaughtering Cave?”_

_Lan WangJi, “…”_

_The two entered the main area and Lan WangJi asked “What about the blood pool, then?”_

_Wei WuXian pointed at a pool of water within the cave, “The blood pool is this right here.”_

_It was dim inside the cave, making it difficult to tell whether the water was black or red. It gave an odor of blood, somewhere between light and heavy._

_Originally, a line of restriction had surrounded the pool, though it had been destroyed by Wen Ning already, when the ferocious corpse had torn through the wards and wreaked havoc on the little Wen settlement that now sat at the top of the Burial Mounds in YiLing burning up the warning talisman that had pulled him, Wei Ying and A-Yuan from that little restaurant down in town. Wei WuXian put it up again and tied it together._

_Lan WangJi, “The dark energy is dense.”_

_Wei WuXian, “That’s right. The dark energy is really heavy, fit to nurture dark creatures. This is where I use to ‘parent’ the fierce corpses that haven’t been completed yet. Guess how many are in the bottom?” He smiled, “To be honest, I don’t know just how many there are either. But the water in the pool is smelling more and more like blood.”_

_Whether it was because of the lighting or not, Wei WuXian’s complexion seemed unusually pale. His smile seemed to have some eeriness to it as well. Lan WangJi gazed at him quietly,_

_“Wei Ying.”_

_Wei WuXian, “What?”_

_Lan WangJi, “Can you really control it?”_

_Wei WuXian, “Control what? You mean Wen Ning? Of course I can. Look, he’s already returned to consciousness.” Wei WuXian gloated, “An unprecedented fierce corpse.”_

_Lan WangJi, “What would you do if he lost consciousness again?”_

_Wei WuXian, “I already have experience with dealing with him when he’s out of consciousness. I’m the one who controls him. As long as nothing happens to me, nothing will happen to him either.”_

_After a while of silence, Lan WangJi asked, “But what if something does happen to you?”_

_Wei WuXian, “It won’t.“_

_Lan WangJi, “How could you be sure?”_

_Wei WuXian’s voice was firm, “It won’t, and it can’t.”_

_Lan WangJi paused as he spoke again, “Do you intend on staying like this from now on?”_

_Wei WuXian, “What’s wrong with staying like this? My place not good enough for you? This mountain here is even bigger than the Cloud Recesses. Our food here is much better too.”_

_“Wei Ying,” Lan WangJi spoke, “You know what I mean.”_

_“…” Wei WuXian answered with reluctance, “Lan Zhan, you… really are something out of this world. I’ve already changed the subject of conversation and you pulled it back again.”_

_Suddenly, he felt an itch at his throat. Blood began to rise up his chest. Trying to restrain it, Wei WuXian coughed a couple of times. Seeing that Lan WangJi was going to grab his hand, Wei WuXian dodged, “What are you doing?”_

_Lan WangJi, “Your injuries.”_

_Wei WuXian, “No need. Why use spiritual energy for such a small wound? It’ll get better after some sitting around.”_

_Lan WangJi didn’t waste any words with him, grabbing for his hand again. At this point, two people came from outside of the cave. Wen Qing’s voice sounded, “Get better after some sitting around? Did you think I’m dead?”_

_Following behind her was Wen Ning, the newly awakened ferocious corpse that had alarmed the entire cultivation world. He was holding a tray. On it was a pot of tea and a black clay jar of wine. Wen Ning’s skin was ashen. Incantations that hadn’t been fully wiped away yet could still be seen at his neck in thick black lines. Wen Yuan was the one hugging Wen Ning’s leg. As soon as he came in, he stumbled toward Wen WuXian and hung himself at his leg instead. Seeing that Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi looked at him in coordination, Wen Ning pulled the corners of his lips up, as if trying to smile. However, the muscles on his face were dead. They couldn’t move._

_He could only greet them, “Young Master Wei… Young Master Lan.”_

_Wei WuXian lifted his leg and picked Wen Yuan up, swaying him in the air, “Why are you here? Finished crying so soon?”_

_Wen Qing threatened, “Just watch how I make you cry later!” Despite what she said, her voice still sounded nasally._

_Wei WuXian, “What a joke! How could you make me… Ah!!!”_

_Wen Qing walked up to him and gave him a loud slap on the back, so hard that it managed to make Wei WuXian cough up a mouthful of blood. His face is full of disbelief, “You… You’re so cruel…”_

_After he finished, he shut his eyes and passed out. Lan WangJi’s face paled as he went to catch him, “Wei Ying!”_

_Wen Qing, however, revealed three silver needles, scolding, “I have crueler things that you haven’t seen yet. Get up!”_

_As if nothing happened, Wei WuXian got up from Lan WangJi’s arms, wiping away the blood at his mouth, “Please don’t. The cruelest is the woman’s heart. I wouldn’t want to see that.”_

_It turned out that Wen Qing’s slap only let out the blood that had clogged up within his chest. How could the renowned best medic of Qishan really be so rash? Seeing that it was another prank, Lan WangJi gave a harsh flip of his sleeves and turned around, as though he didn’t want to talk to such a ridiculous person ever again. Wen Ning just woke up, his reaction still slower than others. When he saw Wei WuXian cough up blood, he paused in surprise as well, but now he remembered that he injured Wei WuXian when he was still unconscious just moments earlier._

_His spoke with guilt, “Young Master, I’m sorry…”_

_Wei WuXian waved his hand, “Enough, enough. Did you really think something would happen to me with a punch like that?”_

_Wen Qing watched Lan WangJi’s expression with her inky eyes, “HanGuang-Jun, have a seat?”_

It seemed as if that fleeting insanity filled his mind again as Lan Zhan took that seat. Settling himself regally on the cold stone Wei WuXian had offered him. Wen Ning had placed that tray of tea and wine on the table between them, leaving in silence as the Wen siblings left them to their privacy.

Lan Zhan had stared at the cup of wine Wei WuXian had offered him then, an odd light on his pale face, his beautiful grey eyes swirling with more of those unspoken words and that madness had seized Lan Zhan again. 

He drank that cup of sweet fruit wine and between one blink and the next found Wei WuXian in his arms again, his hands in his hair and his mouth pressing blistering kisses against his own. 

He had no notion of time or space as they kissed, love hammering the heart that was racing in his chest as he wrapped another one of these stolen moments with Wei Ying around himself again.

He didn’t care about honor, about propriety, about the band on his forehead, the sour tang of resentful energy in his nose as he let Wei Ying pull him to his feet again, tugging the venerable HanGuang-Jun towards his bed. 

And Lan Zhan went willingly, oh how willing he was. Anything to be closer to Wei Ying, in whatever form he asked for Lan Zhan would do it. So deep was his need to be with this man he loved. 

That love was almost a pain in his chest as he methodically slid those black robes off pausing at the leather bracers Wei WuXian wore on his forearms. He pulled at the laces determined to have Wei Ying naked and bare before him again, open and willing for his greedy gaze and his hungry mouth. 

Lan Zhan ached with the desire to run his hands along the long planes of his muscles, to drag his tongue along that pale skin and leave a scattering of pink and red petals along Wei Ying’s body.

He pulled the left bracer off, moving to the right one as Wei Ying paused suddenly with a stilted breath. Lan Zhan looked up at him for a moment curious before he glanced down again, his hand sliding that leather cuff off as he froze, his amber eyes staring at the faded white satin band wrapped around Wei Ying’s arm. 

The Lan Sect ribbon was looped around his wrist. It was brown along the edges from sweat and dust but the brilliant white of it was so stark against his skin. Lan Zhan swallowed heavily as he pressed his trembling fingers to the silk band glancing up into the stormy maelstrom that was Wei Ying’s unfathomable eyes. 

They stared at each other for a moment, a wealth of unspoken words in that gaze before Lan Zhan slid his hand into Wei Ying’s holding it tight as he surged forward kissing Wei WuXian hard and fast, his heart falling from his mouth into the open, moaning one against his.

He kissed Wei Ying with abandon, with a wild desperation to convey all the words in his heart. All those tumbling suffocating words he couldn’t say as he realized Wei Ying had worn his ribbon since he had left it in his hand after that stolen night in Yunmeng. 

“Ah….haaaa….. Lan…...huff…..mmmm” Wei Ying slipped his free hand up to wrap around Lan Zhan’s neck, digging his fingers into his black hair as he pressed his body flush against his rolling his hips forward as a loud moan fell from their moving mouths. 

Lan Zhan couldn’t deal with himself, with the torrent of violent emotion he felt in his chest as he held that hand in his tight, his free one pressing into Wei Ying’s waist as they tumbled down into the messy pile of blankets that was his bed. 

Lan Zhan pressed forward, his knees sliding between Wei Ying’s legs as he opened the YiLing Laozu up for him spreading those thighs erotically. He couldn’t stop kissing him, couldn’t stop trying to mold their lips together, the rush of love burning their mouths as Wei Ying tried to breathe under Lan Zhan’s chaotic kiss. 

Wei WuXian was no better. He ached with all those blistering emotions. He wanted, he craved, he needed Lan Zhan. And even though they fought and argued every other time they had crossed paths, in this moment, in the private of his heart he confessed to himself what he had known all along. 

Had known since those first 3 months he had spent studying at Cloud Recesses when that uncontrollable, unfathomable fascination had caught him. The Second Jade of Lan crossing his sight and capturing him heart and soul. 

He could have never known what that obsession with Lan Zhan would become. How this tall, imposing man who smelled of cold and sandalwood would haunt his thoughts forever at the back of his mind. They were like fire and water, opposites in every way. Where Wei Ying was hot, Lan Zhan was cold; where he was wild, Lan Zhan was calm. Where he was dark, Lan Zhan was light. And that light called to him, beckoned him, seduced him and oh how he wanted, how he craved Lan Zhan’s light; he wanted to wrap it around himself, to wrap those steady arms around him and lay there in that refuge, safe and warm.

When he had first come back from the Burial Mounds poisoned with resentful energy Lan Zhan had pulled him back, urging him to stop and Wei Ying had read it as concern. Whether that was the soft whisperings of his own heart or not, Wei Ying had found that he very much wanted Lan Zhan to care about him; had always wanted it. 

In the shy years of their childhood, he had begged and pleaded for this beautiful boy to be his friend and now in the chaotic turbulence that was his life, he begged and pleaded with his lips and his hands and his mouth; pleaded for so much more than Lan Zhan could give.

He knew with a profound clarity that never in this lifetime would he be worthy of Lan Zhan’s heart and that night so many months ago in Yunmeng had consumed him with regrets, the taste of that heart still on his tongue, that satin ribbon threaded through his fingers. Regrets at the path his life had taken pulling him further and further away from Lan Zhan. 

Wei Ying tugged Lan Zhan closer, that scent of sandalwood surrounding him, his hand tight around his neck, his fingers digging into his hair as he arched his body, dragging their cocks together as stilted moans fell from their still kissing mouths. 

That night in Yunmeng had been the greatest gift and the worst curse Wei WuXian could have ever received. Night after night he had dreamed of that stolen moment. Wrapped that tenderness around himself in the long, cold, lonely nights he spent in this godforsaken cave on this godforsaken mountain. 

He cursed himself and he cursed the Wen Sect who had dropped this burden across his shoulders. But how could he have denied Wen Qing? How could he have looked away from her, horrific in her grief, her voice weak and begging desperately just as he had been in the wake of Jiang Cheng’s destroyed core. She had knelt on the wood boards of Lotus Pier no trace of her imposing dignity and pride just as he had knelt on the cold wooden floors of that supervision office; his heart at her feet and his desperate voice begging and pleading for her to save his brother. 

How could he deny the debt he owed Wen Qing and Wen Ning?

It was impossible; it wasn’t some misguided act of honor that Jiang Cheng liked to throw in his face. It wasn’t some inflated hero complex. It was a debt. It was a debt he owed that he would pay. No matter how many times he was faced with that choice he knew in his heart that he would make the same decision; he would save his brother and he would save the Wens no matter what the cost.

And that cost was Lan Zhan. That cost was so steep that Wei WuXian gasped again, tears collecting on his lashes as he felt that broad body lean into him, that warm hand tight in his own. Lan Zhan was panting into his mouth, his bare body almost burning his everywhere they touched. 

But Wei Ying couldn’t get enough of him. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the unreal moment they found themselves in. Another stolen moment between them, their deep aching emotions tumbling around them with all those words they couldn’t say. 

They couldn’t be honest with each other; couldn’t bare their hearts in the wake of the pain they both realized when they knew those words would change nothing. Their feelings could change nothing. Lan Zhan would walk away from this night in his regal white robes and his Lan sect ribbon to go back to the GusuLan Sect and Wei WuXian would stay here like a prisoner to his actions, chained in this desolate, lonely mountain paying for sins that weren’t his. 

“Ah...HAAA!!” Wei Ying gasped as Lan Zhan canted his hips to press their swollen cocks together. He wrapped his broad hand around them both, pulling and tugging roughly, his breathless gasps feathering along Wei Ying’s open mouth. Lan Zhan moaned softly, a deep hoarse sound that stung Wei Ying's ears. It rushed under his skin burning him up from the inside as he bucked his hips dragging his cock along Lan Zhan’s in a hot line as they chased their release, their bodies tensing up, pulling tighter and tighter, pleasure swelling low in their bellies. 

“HHAA…..AHHH….LA….LAN ZHAN!” Wei Ying gasped brokenly, Lan Zhan’s name like a prayer on his lips as he felt that swirling pressure crest within him dragging him under, his body tensing like a bow under Lan Zhan’s heavy body. 

“NNNGH!” Lan Zhan answered him with another one of those hoarse groans as they painted his fist with thick white lines.

They huffed together, panting breathlessly before Lan Zhan leaned back onto his knees so he could stare at Wei Ying. He couldn’t get enough of him. His eyes tracking possessive lines across the YiLing Laozu’s body engraving every heaving breath, every soft sigh, every blushing mark on his skin into his mind. 

No matter how strong Uncle Four’s wine was, Lan Zhan would remember this night as well tucking this memory into the deepest corners of his heart so he could keep Wei Ying with him for always as though he could keep the man himself in his arms. 

Lan Zhan loved with a powerful force, an inescapable, irrational, unfathomable love. A love that transcended the physical world; it didn’t care about the blood on Wei Ying’s hands, about the demonic energy he played into being with the long seductive notes of Chenqing.

It didn’t matter that Wei WuXian was the YiLing Laozu, the most feared, most reviled human being to walk this earth. It didn’t matter what his sins were, Lan Zhan would love him through this life and the next and he would hold these stolen moments of passion between them in his heart like something precious because that was what Wei Ying was to him.

Something precious to be cherished and protected, to guard and treasure even if he himself shied away, pulling back from all the love Lan Zhan filled his mouth with; but Wei Ying drank it in regardless, drank that love like the sweetest wine, wrapped it around himself like a warm blanket; letting Lan Zhan suffuse him with those warm, sweet kisses as though they could somehow catch this moment in amber, freeze this stolen moment in time forever lost in each other’s arms.

Lan Zhan pulled away from their hot lengths as he slipped his hand down between Wei Ying’s blushing thighs to caress the soft, firm cheeks of his ass. He pushed his finger deeper to tease that little pink hole. He swallowed heavily as he felt it flutter under the pad of his fingertip and he forced his desire back. He was still so hard, so desperately ready to take this man laying bare and open for him. 

He craved this moment, craved this stolen, forbidden night in Wei Ying’s arms even if Wei Ying himself was silent, even if those unfathomable eyes looked back at him with those foggy, hazy words that neither one of them could seem to drag into the light. 

Those words hung like weights between them, like solid walls around them cutting them off from each other even as they suffocated themselves in all these nameless emotions. Lan Zhan didn’t know what to think about those dark, grey eyes but this time, this time they seemed warmer somehow, that hand in his firm, those fingers still threaded through his own as though they were tied together. 

And yet that gaze did seem warmer even as that nameless weight still glittered along those long, dark lashes, but there seemed to be something else there as well. Lan Zhan could read Wei Ying no more than he could the last time he had found himself in the YiLing Laozu’s arms but something faint fluttered in those grey depths, something ever so subtle seemed different somehow. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the delusions of his heartbroken mind but he felt like maybe, just maybe Wei Ying felt the same way. 

Maybe the love in their mouths was Wei WuXian’s as well. Maybe Wei Ying’s heart was in the desperate grip of his fingertips and the soft, gentle brushes of his lips. Maybe Wei Ying felt just as deeply, hurt just as deeply as Lan Zhan under the impossible circumstances they found themselves in, no promise of a future together, no possibility of anything more than these stolen moments in the darkness of the night. 

Lan Zhan didn’t know, he didn’t even dare to hope but despite himself he bottled up those warm, wet grey eyes and hid them away in his heart as he slid his hand down to caress Wei Ying’s soft, pink entrance again. 

He rubbed his wet fingers into the cleft of his ass, dragging along that little puckered hole as he massaged it with his hand. He passed over it again and again as he leaned down to kiss that addicting mouth once more. 

He couldn’t stop kissing Wei Ying. Anything to get him closer and closer to this transient being in his arms, anything to tie this man to him, to capture this elusive heart he wanted so desperately. There was nothing else he wanted more in this life than this man, this reckless, selfless man who let honor and justice chain him, imprison him here on this mountain of corpses. 

Lan Zhan pushed his fingers firmly against that little hole, slipping into it easily as Wei Ying relaxed for him, his panting moaning voice caressing his ears making him all the hotter. He was so, so hard, so ready to make love to him, to show him with his body all the words trapped in his chest. 

He didn’t try to speak, he knew nothing he could say would be enough, would mean enough, would bear the weight of their impossible relationship. In this dark, chilly cave he let his fingers move in and out, stretching them to work that hole open. He moaned into Wei WuXian’s mouth as he felt it clutch around him as if begging for more.

And Lan Zhan pulled them back quickly, moving onto his knees again. He slipped his hands under those long, long legs to pull them open when Wei Ying stopped him with a soft touch to his chest. 

“L...let…..me……” He whispered as he pushed Lan Zhan back into those messy, threadbare blankets that barely kept the cold from seeping into their bodies. Lan Zhan let him move him, let him do whatever it was that he wanted. Whatever Wei Ying asked for, he would give, whatever price he had to pay he would for this moment. 

Wei WuXian moved over Lan Zhan’s prone body, his legs falling to either side of his solid hips as he rose up onto his knees. He gazed down into Lan Zhan’s beautiful golden eyes as he positioned that hot hard length under him. Lan Zhan’s broad hands wrapping around his waist as he realized with a breathless gasp what Wei Ying was about to do.

He stared up at Wei Ying then, his eyes tracking heavy greedy lines across his body, over his curving waist and up his flushed chest to those blushing cheeks. Then he met those wild grey eyes as the YiLing Laozu sat back pushing the thick swollen tip of Lan Zhan’s cock into himself. He pushed and pushed until he felt his entrance give and that long, thick length slid up into him and Wei Ying moaned long and loud, that husky, velvety voice sliding like silk along Lan Zhan’s ears. 

He willed himself still as he fought every single instinct in his body that urged him to buck up, to move deeper into that warm, willing body. Lan Zhan gritted his teeth as he felt that long, slow pull and tug as Wei Ying rose the full length of his long cock before dropping his hips into him with a drag to rip twin moans from their throats. 

Lan Zhan's hands moved down to those sharp hips as he dug his fingers into the pale skin leaving red prints behind as proof that this stolen night was not some hazy forbidden fantasy and then he moaned again as Wei Ying rolled his hips forward then up before sitting back down pushing Lan Zhan deeper and deeper inside him, his own voice hoarse and breathy with effort as he tried to force his body to move under all that mindblowing pleasure.

Wei Ying rode him slowly, their love taking physical form as they tried to express themselves through their bodies words failing once again between them and Lan Zhan let him. He held back that desperate desire to move them faster as he lay there staring up at the long, beautiful arching body of the man he loved as he made love to him.

Wei Ying made love to him slowly, firmly, softly and profoundly, every rolling buck of his hips imprinting love into the body of the man underneath him. Where Lan Zhan loved with his mouth and his hands, Wei WuXian loved with every gentle rock over his hips. 

With every dip of those pale hips and every long pull of his body, Lan Zhan could feel it. He could feel this impossible love Wei Ying had and it caught in his chest and threatened to drown him, the sorrow that was their impossibility crashing through his chest and he leaned up to kiss him. 

In a desperate attempt to ease this suffocating despair in his heart, he caught Wei Ying’s mouth with his own, his arms wrapping around his back in a tight hug as though it could hold Wei Ying down, as though it could keep this transient being here with him when he seemed so ready to fade away into the darkness. 

Lan Zhan’s arms moved with Wei Ying as he rolled his hips forward before lifting all the way up until just the tip of that swollen cock was inside him before he dropped his hips down moaning brokenly into Lan Zhan’s mouth as that cock stabbed into that soft, spongy bud inside him. 

The pleasure from that buck curved Wei Ying forward his body freezing for a moment with a shock. Lan Zhan took over then, lifting those hips up and down as he thrusted in further straight into that spot again and again and again.

He almost couldn’t breath with Wei Ying’s tongue in his mouth but he didn’t care. He could think of no better way to die than here in Wei Ying’s arms. They bucked and moaned against each other, their voices echoing around them in that dark, dim cave, that heavy press of resentful energy all around them but they didn’t notice.

Because between them it smelled like bonfires and that cold, cold sandalwood, their mouths hot against each other as they made love. It wasn’t sex. It could never be just sex between them. There were too many unspoken words, too many memories, too many chaotic emotions swirling around them for this to be just pleasure. They could never be that simple. Nothing could ever be that simple between them. 

And they rocked back and forth and up and down and in and out and back and forth again as their hearts took on physical form, those unspoken words suffocating them so much more thoroughly than their breathless kisses and Lan Zhan felt that madness rise up in him again as he gasped out, a soft desperation coloring his voice.

“Wei Y….Ying c…..ome back to Gusu with me…...” 

Wei Ying froze in his arms, pausing in his thrust as he fluttered his long lashes, opening his eyes that had drifted closed under this pleasure between them. He was silent for a moment, his grey eyes staring deeply into Lan Zhan’s amber gaze, the shock pushing back that unreadable haze letting Lan Zhan see all the flickering uncertainty and fragility that Wei Ying hid behind those impenetrable walls. 

He licked his lips for a moment before he swallowed heavily. 

“La…...Lan Zhan…. You……”

He paused for a moment clearing his mind with effort as he met those golden eyes willing Lan Zhan to understand as he spoke again, his voice hoarse and soft as he tried to put some of that nameless weight into words. 

"You….asked me if I intended on staying like….like this from now on. But….I’d like to ask something as well. What …….what can I….. do apart from this?”

His question was so faint, barely a breath on Lan Zhan’s lips before he continued.

“Should I give up the demonic path? Then what about the people on this mountain? Give them up too? I…….I won’t be able to do it and I…...I believe that if you were me…... you wouldn’t be able to do it either…...nobody can give me a nice, broad road to walk on Lan Zhan…..” 

He trailed off, his voice so very soft in the darkness of that cave and Lan Zhan tightened his arms around him again but he knew what Wei Ying said was the truth. There was no other way, no other path for the Wens, for them, for Wei Ying.

And Lan Zhan leaned forward laying the softest and most delicate kiss against his lips as his hips moved up again, pushing into Wei Ying in a long slow glide. He pulled Wei WuXian against him with tenderness as he leaned forward further to gently lay him back against the blankets. Their hands find each other again. His body rocking into Wei Ying’s with long, slow thrusts.

He knew there was nothing he could do, nothing at all to save the man he loved from this miserable life. And he spent the last few hours in that cave doing nothing but the one thing he could do. He kissed Wei Ying breathless, his body moving just a little faster to press deeper and harder into that soft bud of nerves as he pulled them higher, their bodies tensing against each other as they made love, arching and thrusting and bucking back and forth. 

And Lan Zhan had a dim thought in that moment; a dim, distant thought that maybe, just maybe those glittering, glistening tears in Wei Ying’s eyes and that broken almost sobbing voice was full of love for him too; full of those twin pools of sorrow and despair they shared at their impossible circumstances and he bucked into Wei Ying’s ass with one more deep thrust swallowing that loud moan as their bodies pulled tight against each other as they came, their releases washing over them in a powerful wave. 

After that, Lan Zhan did it again and then again. He made love to Wei Ying until the twilight of dawn crested the top of that desolate mountain. And with it came the shackles of reality. The weight of responsibility that settled around them both.

They were quiet as they dressed in the gloom of that cave, their bodies still hot with their passion, their lips swollen and red and Lan Zhan glanced down at the white ribbon wound tight around Wei Ying’s wrist, a wave of warmth curling through his chest as he pulled his belt around his waist. 

He didn’t mention it, meeting Wei Ying’s eyes for a moment. Those unreadable grey eyes that seemed just a little bit warmer, just a shade lighter. They walked out of that cave in silence, leaving all those unspoken words behind as the edge of dawn just barely touched the jagged black peaks around them. 

Wei WuXian led Lan Zhan to the little curving forest path that would mark the end of this night, of this moment between them, the shimmering red wards of the barrier striking a bold line in the dirt.

A line that would cut him off from Wei Ying, cut him off from the man who turned his heart upside down in his chest and Lan Zhan swallowed thickly. He glanced back for a moment meeting those distant, unreadable eyes again. The moment of clarity he had had in the cave seemed like a fading dream. Wei WuXian’s eyes were closed off and dark once more as he stood there watching Lan Zhan walk away.

The love they shared in that stolen night in the cave in YiLing would be the last night of passion they would share in this life. The darkness of Nightless City and the Siege of the Burial Mounds would forever separate them; black from white, right from wrong, light from dark leaving Lan Zhan behind, tears in those beautiful golden eyes and a wealth of regrets in his heart at all the words he should have said.

Regrets that would paint the next years of his life in tones of black and grey with nothing but the songs on his guqin and the memories of their stolen nights together, memories of those unfathomable grey eyes so deep and dark and endless. 


	3. LuanZang Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Inquiry right.....is like the most beautiful song. Please listen to it lol  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PT9GFtmwNM

Lan Zhan blinked, his blurry eyes catching the golden afternoon rays that slipped in through the shutters. They painted long shadowy arcs across the floor. Then he blinked again. His foggy gaze drifting around the dim jingshi as he felt his awareness return to him slowly. He swallowed for a moment dragging his tongue from the roof of his mouth, his throat almost sticking together dryly as he registered for the first time the deep throbbing lines of the whip marks along his back, the wounds burning and aching and oozing blood into the bandages wrapped tight around his body. 

They were open and sore, deep lashes that scored his back in 33 erratic lines. Each one swollen and pooling blood into the layers and layers of wraps that crisscrossed his back. They would take years to heal even with all the rare herbs and plants that grew in the lush gardens around the Cloud Recesses. 

33 lashes he had taken before the imposing Wall of Discipline, one strike for every elder he had injured, one for every sin he had committed, one for every breath he had given for Wei WuXian. For how long he had knelt before that wall with blood running down his back he would never know, a day? 3 days? A week? A month? He had no idea how long he had knelt there on the stone in such mind numbing agony and misery. 

That pain was so profound it pushed all thoughts from his mind and for a long, long time he had drifted in and out of consciousness there on that cold ground, his body hunched over as his thoughts scattered around him in the wind. He couldn’t think, couldn’t dream, couldn’t conceive of anything but that unrelenting pain.

A day or a week or a year later he had returned to his consciousness in bits and pieces as things flitted in and out of focus; his brother’s gentle hands, the soft mournful sounds of a xiao, the long shimmering patterns of the shadows across the floor. 

For how long he had drifted in that unending ocean of pain, he had no idea and days passed like this. Days and days of this grey, drowsy gloom. It was in this fog that Lan Zhan had found the smallest measure of peace; broken memories flowing across his mind with flashes of dark grey eyes and sun kissed smiles, of that wild laughter he loved so much.

His thoughts couldn’t flow in a straight line, rather they fluttered around him in snapshots, brief moments in time of long pale legs and arching backs, of elegant fingertips and a soft, hoarse voice calling his name. 

He knew that voice so well, loved that voice so much but this hazy, foggy state he found himself in left him weightless and weak. He couldn’t move, couldn’t reach out to touch those beautiful hands he saw or kiss those swollen lips that floated across his closed eyes in long, looping dreams. 

And like this he drifted, in and out of that unending darkness, those impossibly deep grey eyes the only thing he could see. 

Lan Zhan blinked again, his long black lashes trembling as he noticed the soft blanket underneath his cheek. He lay there face down on his bed aware for the first time, his thoughts vague and empty. He trailed his distant eyes lazily along one long golden arc of sunlight that lay across the floor slipping in from the world around him. 

Here in the gloom of his shadowy room, he lay there in silence. The swollen skin on his back pulsing and throbbing; burning as though his back was torn open but it was oddly faint as though that pain wasn’t quite real. As though he wasn’t quite real. 

Lan Zhan laid there on that bed as he watched those stripes of sunlight grow fainter and fainter and for a long, long while he stared unseeing at the floorboards. His amber eyes staring at nothing as the first thought teased the edges of his drowsy mind. 

_Wei Ying_

_Where are you?_

He wondered distantly as his thoughts spiraled remembering that horrifying night and Wei Ying’s terrifying, eerie face; the long chaotic notes of Chenqing cutting through Nightless City.

~*~

_Jin GuangShan raised his hands as he stood atop the stone steps in front of ruins of the Palace of Sun and Flames signaling for the people to be quiet and listen to him talk. When the cheers slowly died down, he continued, raising his voice, “Tonight, the ones whose ashes had been scattered were the two leaders of the Wen Sect’s remnants. And tomorrow! It will be the rest of the Wen-dogs and—the YiLing Patriarch, Wei Ying!”_

_Suddenly, a low laugh interrupted his grand speech. The laugh was too untimely, sounding both stark and jarring. In unison, the crowd turned to look at where the sound came from._

_The Palace of Sun and Flames was a rather magnificent palace. A total of twelve ridges made up its roof, and at the end of each ridge were eight heavenly beasts. Yet, right now, the people realized that on one of those ridges, there were nine. The laugh from before came from over there!_

_The extra beast shifted slightly. The next moment, a boot and a corner of black clothes dangled down from the roof, swaying softly._

_Everyone placed their hand onto their sword hilt. Jiang Cheng’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand._

_Jin GuangShan was overcome with both shock and hatred, “Wei Ying! How dare you show yourself here!”_

_The person opened their mouth to speak. What came out was indeed Wei WuXian’s voice, but he spoke in a strange tone, “Why should I dare not show myself here? Do you people here even add up to three thousand? Don’t forget that back in the Sunshot Campaign, let alone three thousand, I’ve fought against five thousand on my own before. And by appearing here, haven’t I granted your wish? No need for you to come all the way to my home tomorrow to scatter my ashes.”_

_A few of the QingheNie Sect’s disciples died in the hands of Wen Ning as well. Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “What arrogance.”_

_Wei WuXian, “Haven’t I always been arrogant? Sect Leader Jin, how does it feel, having slapped yourself in the face? Who was the one that said he’d let the matter go if the Wen siblings went to Koi Tower and gave themselves up? And who was the one that just said he’d scatter my ashes and the ashes of the rest of the Wen Sect’s remnants tomorrow?”_

_Jin GuangShan, “Let’s consider things as they stand! At Qiongqi Path, you slaughtered over a hundred of the LanlingJin Sect’s disciples—this is one thing. You made Wen Ning kill at Koi Tower—this is another…”_

_Wei WuXian, “Then let me ask you, Sect Leader Jin, at Qiongqi Path, who was the one being ambushed? And who was the one to kill? Who was the main schemer? And who was the one being schemed against? In the end, just who was the one that came to provoke me first?”_

_Hidden among such a large crowd, the disciples inside of the arrays all felt rather safe. Bravening up, they shouted, “Even if Jin ZiXun was the one who schemed to ambush you first, you shouldn’t have been so heartless and kill so many lives!”_

_“Oh,” Wei WuXian helped him analyze, “If he wanted to kill me, he didn’t have to think about whether it was a fatal blow or not, and if I died, it’d be my own bad luck. If I wanted to protect myself, however, I had to think about this and that not to harm, unable to take even a single strand of hair away from him? In conclusion, you all could pull a siege on me, but I’m not allowed to fight back, am I right?”_

_Sect Leader Yao raised his voice, “Fight back? Those over a hundred people and the thirty on Koi Tower were all innocent. If you were fighting back, why did you have to involve them?”_

_Wei WuXian, “The fifty cultivators on Burial Mound are also innocent, so why do you have to involve them?”_

_Someone else spat, “Just what great kindness has the Wen-dogs given you? To have you be on those scum’s side like this.”_

_“In my opinion, there isn’t any great kindness at all. It’s just that he thinks he’s a hero fighting against the entire world. He thinks he’s doing an act of justice, that he himself is quite an impressive person, risking everyone’s condemnation!”_

_Hearing this, Wei WuXian became silent._

_The crowd below took his silence as withdrawal, “When it comes down to it, you were the first to place such a dark curse on Jin ZiXun!”_

_Wei WuXian, “May I ask you, just what evidence do you have to prove that I was the one who placed the curse?”_

_The one who asked the question was at a loss for words. He spoke, after a moment, “Then do you have any evidence to prove that you weren’t the one who placed the curse?”_

_Wei WuXian smiled, “Then let me ask you again—why couldn’t it have been you? You don’t have any evidence to prove that you weren’t the one who placed the curse either, do you?”_

_The person was both shocked and enraged, “Me? How could I be the same as you? Don’t you mix the black and the white! You’re the most suspicious. Do you think we don’t know? You and Jin ZiXun have held enmity toward each other ever since a year ago!”_

_Wei WuXian’s voice dripped in ice, “Just who is the one mixing the black and the white? That’s right. If I wanted to kill him, I would’ve done it a year ago. I didn’t have to keep him until now. Or else, I’d forget such a person in no more than three days, much less a year.”_

_Sect Leader Yao was shocked, “… Wei WuXian, Wei WuXian, today I’ve finally come to see. I’ve really never seen a villain as unreasonable as you are… Even after you killed the people, you have to shame them with words. Don’t you hold any sympathy, any guilt?”_

_The crowd flung curses at him, but Wei WuXian accepted all of them._

_Anger was the only thing that could suppress the other feelings within his heart._

_One of the cultivators who stood in the front rows of one of the arrays commented bitterly, “Wei Ying, you disappoint me so much. There used to be a time when I admired you and said that at least you were someone who founded your own sect. Now that I think about it, it’s almost repulsive. From this moment on, I’ll forever stand on the opposite side of you!”_

_Hearing this, Wei WuXian first paused, but soon exploded with laughter, “Hahahaha…”_

_He laughed so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe, “You admired me? You said you admired me, but why haven’t I ever seen you when you admired me? And as soon as I’m loathed by everyone, you jump out and wave your little flag?”_

_Tears of laughter seeped from the corners of Wei WuXian’s eyes, “Your admiration is a bit too cheap, isn’t it? You said that you’ll forever stand on the opposite side of me. Very well. Does the fact that you’re standing on the opposite side of me affect me at all? Both your admiration and your hatred are so, so insignificant. How could you be so shameless as to flaunt them in front of others?”_

_Before he could finish, he suddenly felt something at his throat. A dull ache came from his chest. He looked down to see a fletched arrow in the center of his chest. The head of the arrow was buried between two of his ribs._

_He gazed toward the direction in which the arrow came from. The one who shot the arrow was a young cultivator with delicate features. Standing before a small sect’s array, he was still maintaining the pose, his bowstring still vibrating._

_Wei WuXian could tell the arrow tip was originally aiming for his heart, his vital region. Yet, because the archer wasn’t skilled, the force of the arrow tip dwindled by midair to have missed the heart and shot into the ribcage._

_Everyone around the person who shot the arrow had eyes wide open, staring with shock and even fear at the disciple who had done such a thing. Wei WuXian looked up. Darkness veiled his face. He pulled out the arrow and tossed it back hard. With a wail, the young cultivator who snuck an attack at him was hit right in the chest with the arrow he tossed back!_

_A boy next to him threw himself on top of him, “Brother! Brother!”_

_The sect’s array was immediately thrown into chaos. The sect leader pointed at Wei WuXian with one shaking finger, “You… You… You are so cruel!”_

_With his right hand, Wei WuXian unhurriedly pressed the wound at his chest, temporarily ceasing the blood flow. His voice was indifferent, “What does cruel mean? If he dared shoot the arrow at me when I was off guard, he should’ve known what would be facing him if he failed. They call me the cultivator of the crooked path, anyways, so you can’t possibly count on me to be generous and not bother with him, can you?”_

_Jin GuangShan ordered, “Set up the battle arrays, set up the battle arrays! We won’t let him leave here alive no matter what!”_

_With the order, the stalemate was finally broken. Carrying swords and arrows, many disciples rushed toward the ceiling of the palace._

_They finally attacked first!_

_With a bitter smile, Wei WuXian took up Chenqing from beside his waist and placed it at his lips. With the flute’s sharp howl, pale hands broke through the dirt of the Nightless City plaza, one after another!_

_Corpse after corpse toppled the white bricks laid on the ground, crawling out from the depths of the soil. Some of those who just mounted their swords and left the ground were immediately dragged back down by them. Wei WuXian stood atop the ridge of the Palace of Sun and Flames, eyes glowing a cold light amid the notes of the flute and the night sky. Looking down, the uniforms of the different sects seemed to be a boiling concoction of multicolored water, tossing and turning, parting at times and joining at others. Apart from the YunmengJiang Sect, all sects were jumbled. Each sect leader hurried to protect their own disciples, having no spare time to attack Wei WuXian._

_Suddenly, the limpid notes of a zither interrupted Chenqing._

_Wei WuXian put down Chenqing and turned around to see a person sitting on another of the ridges, guqin laid across his lap. His snow-white robes seemed to burn the eye amid the dark of the night._

_Wei WuXian spoke in a cold voice, “Lan Zhan.” After he greeted him, he again placed his flute to his lips, “You should’ve known since long ago—Sound of Lucidity is useless to me!”_

_Lan WangJi flipped the guqin onto his back. Instead, he pulled out Bichen and attacked straight at Chenqing, as if he wanted to sever the flute playing such wrongful notes._

_Wei WuXian spun around to dodge the attack and laughed, “Fine, fine. I knew since the start that we’d have to fight a real fight like this one sooner or later. You’ve always found me disagreeable no matter what. Come on!”_

_Hearing this, Lan WangJi’s movements paused, “Wei Ying!”_

_Although he shouted the words, any sane person would be able to tell that Lan WangJi’s voice was clearly shaking. However, right now, Wei WuXian had already lost his judgement. He was already half-mad, half-unconscious. All evil was being augmented by him. He felt that everyone loathed him and he loathed everyone as well. He wouldn’t be scared no matter who came at him. It wouldn’t matter anyway. It was all the same to him._

Lan WangJi closed his eyes bitterly as he lay immobile on the low bed in the jingshi. His heart clenching in his chest. That night, Nightless City had run with blood, thousands and thousands of people had died slaughtered by Wei WuXian and his haunting songs. With Chenqing at his lips, he had been terrifying in his grief and his madness. The winds of resentful energy had roared around him in the darkness of the night throwing his hair back from his pale, eerie face as he stood atop the palace roof facing down the people who would destroy him. 

Was he wrong? Was he right? What should he have done in the face of all the bloodlust that craved his head? Should he have laid down and died, sacrificing himself to ease the petty feelings of others? Lan Zhan didn’t know. 

But at the end of that night, Wei WuXian had fallen like a spent arrow, his body listing to the side and blood staining his lips and the black wood of Chenqing. Resentful energy was a double edged sword. For all the limitless power it offered, it cut the wielder just as much as his victims. It agitated the mind and harmed the spirit and Lan Zhan had watched Wei Ying succumb to his own violence, his heart throwing itself into his mouth. 

Between one blink and the next, he had forced his body across the bloody ground and in a fit of madness spirited him away. He leapt onto his sword forcing the last dregs of his spiritual energy to carry them somewhere, anywhere else. 

He had had no thoughts in that moment, none as the YiLing Laozu stole his honor and left his reputation in tatters. But nothing mattered that night, nothing but saving the man he loved more than life itself. 

In his desperation, he had hidden them in a small, dark cave deep in the mountains of YiLing. No thoughts of the future, of what came next because Lan Zhan was no fool. He knew they’d find him, he knew the cultivation world would never let his Wei Ying go.

And in the darkness of that cave, he confessed his heart; his words rushing out of him as though a dam had broken in his mind. And Wei Ying had laid there in his arms bleeding and fading, his body sucking up Lan Zhan’s spiritual energy as though a blackhole lay in his stomach and not a golden core. 

No matter how much of his weak energy he poured into Wei WuXian, nothing changed, nothing but Wei Ying’s cold, crazed laughter and his wild, hazy eyes. Lan Zhan didn’t know how much Wei Ying heard, how much he understood as he howled with that cruel laughter, his weak arms shoving and pushing him away, his beautiful eyes glittering with a mad light.

And in this way 2 days passed, 2 agonizing, heartbreaking days of Wei Ying devastated by grief and hatred and Lan Zhan heartbroken and desperate. When his brother and his shifu had marched into that cave with 33 seniors, he had swallowed heavily under their cold, cold eyes overflowing with the weight of frustration, confusion and heartache as they faced him down. 

Lan QiRen’s devastated voice almost cracking in his fury as he laid down his judgement and it was with a heavy, conflicting heart that Lan Zhan had faced them with his sword, Bichen glowing its cold blue light. He had injured every one of those 33 elders in that cave that day. Elders who had raised him, who had respected and loved him, their shocked, dispirited eyes would linger in his mind for months after. 

His brother and his shifu fought him long and hard, love forcing their blades as they sought to save him from himself and after an entire day, they had stared at him with exhaustion and disappointment but it was his brother’s softly spoken words that had sealed his fate.

Wei Ying would go back to the Burial Mounds where his wards and his ferocious corpses would keep him safe until he was ready to face the world and Lan Zhan would face his punishment. In the madness of those 3 days, he had broken the heaviest and harshest rules on that Wall of Discipline he knew by heart and he knew his punishment would be severe, no more no less than he deserved. 

But that punishment paled in comparison to the turmoil in his heart. Those rules tumbling over and over in his head; what was right? What was wrong? Was it wrong of Wei Ying to defend the Wens when their clan had done so much evil? Was it wrong to save those 50 cultivators who had neither shed the blood of others nor taken action against the cruelty of their sect? Or was it honorable? Was it wrong of him to defend himself at Qiongqi Path even at the cost of over a hundred lives? Was it wrong to face the cultivators at Nightless City who craved his head? What was right? What was honorable? What should Wei Ying have done, what could he have done?

Lan Zhan didn’t know and he welcomed the mind numbing pain of those 33 lashes, those whips that pushed that tumbling confusion from his thoughts, his mind blank under the crushing, inescapable agony that Lan QiRen administered himself with love and disappointment and tears in his eyes as he sought to spare Lan Zhan his father’s fate. 

Lan Zhan closed his eyes again falling back into darkness in the gloom of his room. He didn’t know anymore and he didn’t care. The chaos of Nightless City had roused the vengeance of all the sects, the great and the small and he knew something profound would happen and Wei Ying would be at the center of it all. 

But what could he do? What had he ever been able to do in the face of those untamed grey eyes and that wild smile? Nothing, he would do nothing, could do nothing but lay there in pain and misery and he pulled the memories of their stolen nights around him again drifting in and out of Wei Ying’s arms as night fell around the quiet Cloud Recesses. 

~*~

Lan XiChen sat at his desk in the hanshi, his brush moving steadily over some letters as he penned his reply, the ever present duties of sect leader laying heavily on his shoulders in the early evening, the brilliant yellow of the low moon drifting in with a breeze from his open windows. 

The Lan sect leader signed his name gracefully with a gentle flick of his brush before he set it aside, turning his eyes away as he glanced out the window with a sigh. He felt that sigh deeply as he stared unseeing at the blooming flowers that lined the walkway. 

He had no patience to spare for the beauty of the Cloud Recesses, melancholy suffusing his ever present smile and painting his face with delicate lines of sadness. The night was still early and it would be another few hours before he left to visit his brother. 

Late into the night he would slip into the jingshi and face the source of his melancholy. No one other than the elders and their uncle knew the truth behind his constant visits to Lan WangJi’s home and Lan XiChen meant to keep it that way. No one needed to know the truth behind HanGuang-Jun’s seclusion and the nearly crippling lashes that still bled on his back.

Lan WangJi, the brother he loved most dearly, was still unconscious from his wounds and it was with a heavy, heavy heart that he would wash his body and treat those long, vicious marks that crisscrossed his back. After a month, they were still as fresh and open as the day they were laid. The purpose of the discipline whip was in its name but the true value of it was in the punishment. 

The punishment that would last long after those strokes fell. One lash from that whip would take an entire month just to begin to heal, the flesh knitting together slowly and painfully and Lan Zhan had taken 33 of them, 33 ugly wounds that shredded his back and left him weak and immobile. 

It would take years for them to heal and even longer for that lingering ache to disappear and Lan XiChen felt sadness well up in him again and he sighed long and loud into the silence of the hanshi. 

What he wouldn’t give to take that pain away, to fill his brother with light and happiness once more but that seemed like such an impossible dream. His brother had always been quiet and gentle in his happiness, his smiles so faint all they did was caress his eyes with a warm glow and Lan XiChen had always loved those golden eyes. So like their mother in their elegant angles but Lan WangJi’s heart was much more like their father with his impossible love. 

While the rest of the world saw HanGuang-Jun with his expressionless mask, Lan XiChen knew better. He could see the wealth of emotions that curled through those amber eyes, every flicker of his rich and vibrant feelings. Lan Zhan was the furthest thing from the blank, empty mask he wore. His heart bursting and overflowing at the world around them. He had always been this way ever since he was a child.

And Lan XiChen felt another sigh build up in his chest. Lan WangJi loved deeply, profoundly, his soft heart would move mountains for those he cared about and the one he cared about most in the world was Wei WuXian. 

_Ah Wei WuXian_

That sigh tumbled from his lips as he contemplated the YiLing Laozu and those cold, cruel eyes. Wei Ying had been a vibrant child, full to bursting with energy and happiness and it had been a welcomed change to have him in the white, monotone world of the Lan Sect.

Lan XiChen had privately marveled at all the silly pranks and loud, sparkling laughter that had filled the Cloud Recesses for those 3 months the juniors had come to study under them. That shimmering laughter and those sunny smiles had pulled the strongest emotions from his little brother and Lan XiChen had laughed himself at the tangled mess Lan WangJi had become around the wild head disciple of the YunmengJiang Sect. 

Wei WuXian was bottled sunlight. He pulled everyone else in with his magnetic happiness so bright and bold around him and the change that had come over him with the war had been so very profound. The Sunshot Campaign had stolen the stars from his eyes and Lan XiChen had watched him and his brother spiral down into those dark, heavy emotions that seemed to drown the pair. 

His brother had grown solemn, his golden eyes listless and concerned as he watched the man he loved turn into something distant and foreign and Lan XiChen had ached to see it. He knew WangJi loved Wei WuXian. It was so very clear in his warm eyes and Lan XiChen had been happy to see it. Happy to see his brother so happy and when that darkness had dragged him down, he had been so very sad to see that too.

When Wei Ying had disappeared for those 3 months, Lan XiChen had feared his brother would disappear too, fading away under the weight of his sadness but worse was when he had returned. Wei WuXian had returned with the black cloak of resentful energy wrapped around his shoulders and Lan XiChen had ached some more. 

He ached for his brother, his brother’s pain like a barb straight through his heart but things just got worse and worse and worse. Resentful energy harmed the heart and disturbed the mind and nowhere was that more clear than in the serious, stern lines that had fallen over Wei WuXian’s face and darkened that smile into something haunting and eerie.

Oh what he would have given to take whatever weight it was that dragged Wei Ying down if only to see his brother smile again but it seemed that fate was a cruel mistress. Nightless City had been a bloodbath, Wei Ying’s Tiger Seal had unleashed waves of devastation that rocked the very foundations of the cultivation world and Lan XiChen was powerless against it, powerless against the havoc it wreaked upon Lan Zhan and his soft heart.

Lan XiChen sighed another one of those weary sighs. Suddenly, his head snapped to the door as he heard the frantic feet of several people rushing towards the hanshi. The door was flung open wildly as disciples fell into his home, their faces bright with excitement.

“ZeWu-Jun!”

“Sect Leader!”

“Sect Leader!”

“ZeWu-Jun!”

“Did you hear?!”

“Did you hear the news?!”

“The YiLing Laozu is dead!”

“The YunmengJiang Sect led the siege and killed him on the spot!”

“Praise the ancestors that demon Wei WuXian is dead!”

Lan XiChen paled, as he scrambled out of his seat in a rush.

“What?!” He asked hurriedly, almost tripping over his feet as he looked to the eldest disciple in the group.

“ZeWu-Jun! The Siege on Burial Hill was a success! The Wens are gone, that evil Wei WuXian is gone! Sect Leader Jiang led the march himself with LanlingJin and QingheNie. They raided LuanZang Hill and destroyed the Wen Sect remnants, that evil clan is no more and that demon Wei WuXian died with them! They say his resentful energy backfired and destroyed him body and soul, there’s nothing left of him!”

Lan XiChen felt the blood drain from his face as he swallowed heavily, his heart jumping into his throat.

“Enough, gossiping is forbidden. Return to your rooms, it’s almost 9. We will speak of this tomorrow.” He dismissed them quickly, waiting on pins and needles for the last one to leave before he dashed down the path towards the jingshi hoping against hope that Lan Zhan was still asleep. 

He threw himself into the room freezing on the spot as he spied that low, empty bed and with a quick glance to his left noticed Lan Zhan’s sword was gone as well. With a heavy, heavy heart, Lan XiChen just stood there staring at that empty bed where Lan Zhan should have been. 

_Oh….WangJi…._

~*~

_No…..No No No No No No No No No_

Lan Zhan threw himself on his sword, trembling with effort as he felt the wounds on his back pull tight, blood soaking his red bandages as he forced what little spiritual power he still had back into his sword as he flew as fast as he could towards LuanZang Hill, his sword wavering under him as he forced even more strength into it.

_“Did you hear?! Did you hear?! Wei WuXian is dead! They killed him last night!”_

_“Hooray! The YiLing Laozu is no more!”_

_“That demon Wei WuXian is dead! Praise my ancestors!”_

_“I heard his ghouls killed him off, there’s nothing left of him haha!”_

_“That’s right! His body was torn to shreds! Serves him right! A fitting end for such an evil man!”_

_NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO_

It couldn’t be true, there was no way it could be true. Lan Zhan despaired as he flew, forcing his sword even faster. The cold wind rushing around him as he spied those black, jagged peaks in the distance. His heart was pounding against his ribs with every shuddering breath he took. Panic and desperation almost choking the very air he breathed. YiLing was close to the border of Yunmeng almost halfway between Gusu and Lotus Pier and it was with that breakneck speed that Lan Zhan arrived at the Burial Mounds in half the time.

He dropped to the black ground stumbling off his sword and almost falling into the dirt as he looked around with panic clawing at his throat. But contrary to his expectations, it looked just the same as it did the last time he was there. 

The thick forest of dead trees lined the pathway casting long shadows in the gloom. Burial Mounds was always grey, thick clouds covering the peaks and blocking out the sun as though even it was loathed to touch that black mountain of corpses.

Lan Zhan glanced around, his heart falling into his stomach as he noticed the obvious lack of those shimmering red wards that had protected and guarded the hill and the sad people that had lived there. 

He walked with heavy steps, scanning the trees over and over as if he could pull answers from that dead forest. He crested the hill quickly, stepping into the wide clearing he had seen only once before and he swallowed dryly as he saw the battle for the first time. The cultivators bodies had already been cleared and the sects had already left, leaving behind nothing but little destroyed houses and blood on the ground. 

There was so much blood. Everywhere he looked the black ground seemed ever darker with vague hues of red where the blood was the thickest. The air stank with that metallic smell, a testament to the carnage that had taken this hill and all who lived there.

Lan Zhan pushed his weak body harder as he ignored the agonizing pain in his back, his need to find Wei Ying palpable in his chest. He had to find him. There was no way he was dead. It was inconceivable to him that his light, his sun, his heart was no more.

For hours he walked around that hill in long, looping circles as he searched. He searched every single inch of that mountain as the night changed to day and back again until the truth was no longer deniable. 

There was no way to avoid that crushing, glaring truth that Wei Ying was gone. And Lan Zhan felt that truth hit his heart like a hammer, shattering it in his chest as he fell to his knees, blood soaking into the white pants he wore.

His shoulders curved forward under the weight of his grief and there he wept. He wept with great heaves of his shoulders, his breath hitching in his chest as he sat there in the bloody, black dirt. He cried with a sadness so profound he thought he’d die with all the grief in his veins.

He lost track of how long he sat there, how long those tears tracked long lines down his face blurring his vision and drowning him in all the crushing, suffocating sorrow in his chest. He cried with a pain unimaginable. He cried until his eyes went dry and all he had left were broken, hitching breaths.

He knelt there in the dirt for minutes, hours, days, the cloud of his misery unending and he thought dimly that he would die there. He would die right there on this mountain of corpses. He couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to take a full breath, his body exhausted and a pounding in his temples but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore. Wei Ying was gone and with it too went his will.

He had nothing anymore, the sun stolen from his life and he felt his body grow weaker, that desperate energy that had filled him disappearing and leaving him almost immobile when he felt the tiniest flicker at the edge of his perception. 

It was so faint he thought he’d imagined it and he turned his face towards the copse of trees next to him reaching out with the last vestiges of his spiritual energy and there it was again, the barest brush of life. With a rush, he threw himself to his feet stumbling jerkily as wild hope spiked in his heart.

Stumbling and dragging his broken body, he hunted through the trees, desperation forcing him faster as that hope burned in his chest. He hoped against hope that maybe, just maybe that fading, weak light was the man he loved. 

He turned from one tree to the next with stilted movements pausing for a moment in shock as he stared. There before him was not Wei Ying but a child. A small, small child tucked into the hollow of a dead tree. He was so still, it was as if he was dead as well and Lan Zhan reached out a trembling hand to tug him into the light.

_Wen Yuan_

That bright, bubbly child that had hung himself on the legs of those he liked with big, happy smiles on his face and Lan Zhan felt the strength in his legs waver as he clutched this child to his chest. This little, little child that had looked at Wei WuXian like he hung the stars and Lan Zhan found he still had more tears to shed. 

He cried into the soft, black hair of that child, all hope extinguished in his chest and he noticed dimly the little head he leaned against was burning up. In fact, his whole body was so hot it was a wonder he was still alive and Lan Zhan pulled his sword out, hopping onto it as A-Yuan gave him his last shred of strength.

~*~

“ZeWu-Jun the letters have all been sent and the senior disciples have all been briefed on their night hunts. They will head out tomorrow morning after breakfast. Now if there is nothing else Sect Leader, this disciple will retire.”

Lan XiChen nodded as he looked away, his brown eyes tracing the elegant teacup by his hand as he sighed another long, weary sigh.

_Ah…..WangJi….where are you?_

Lan XiChen wondered morosely though he had a very good idea where his distressed brother had gone but this was one moment where he would not interfere. WangJi had the right to his grief. He had a right to face LuanZang Hill in privacy for no one other than Lan XiChen could understand if only dimly how much it meant to him, how much Wei WuXian meant to him and Lan XiChen could not bear to take anything else from his brother. 

He lifted that porcelain cup to his lips before turning suddenly as he heard a loud thump outside his door and he hurried towards it. He snapped it open as he froze in shock. Lan Zhan was slumped there on his side, blood pooling on the wooden steps from his wounds as the last vestiges of strength left him and he lay collapsed outside the hanshi, a small child against his chest. 

Lan XiChen blinked before he surged forward in concern. He tugged that little child into his arms frowning as he felt how hot he was, the child was burning up with a powerful fever. He glanced down at WangJi again torn for a moment between his bleeding brother and this dying child.

He shifted the little one to his right arm before he heaved Lan Zhan’s limp body onto his shoulder carrying him tight against his chest. He lifted them both with ease before he dashed down the pathway for the second time, slipping into the jingshi quickly. 

He had no idea who this little child was but he knew one way or the other he had to save him. He knew with absolute certainty that Lan Zhan would not survive it if he lost one more person in his life. 

Lan XiChen laid his brother gently on his bed before he turned quickly intending to take that little child to a healer when Lan Zhan’s hand snapped out weakly to grab the edge of his robes and he spoke with a dry, hoarse voice.

“N….no…..n….o…..he’s…….he’s…...m…..mine” he breathed as those beautiful golden eyes stared up into his brother’s worried gaze with so much hazy sorrow swirling in their depths. 

“Pl….ple…..ase…..do….don’t ta….take…..him away….” 

Lan XiChen really couldn’t say anything in the face of that desolate sadness and he would spend the rest of that night treating and tending to them, a deep melancholy drifting across his face. 

A-Yuan as he would later come to learn took a month to wake up and Lan Zhan took even longer. His mad dash to LuanZang Hill had depleted what little spiritual energy he had had and it would be 2 more months before he would wake up again. 

~*~

Lan Zhan blinked, his amber eyes focusing blearily on the floorboards as he heard the soft, lilting song of the xiao. He turned his head slowly as he looked, catching sight of the long, elegant form of his brother next to him. Lan XiChen was sitting on the floor by his bed leaning back against it as he played his flute. 

The deep soothing notes suffusing the room with peace and tranquility. His brother was a master musician and only he could weave such a beautiful song. It wasn’t any Lan Zhan had heard before, those soft lilting sounds gentle and warm. It was so comforting and Lan Zhan shifted slightly as he spoke. His voice was hoarse and rough with disuse.

“Br…….bro…..th…...er?” he almost sighed as he heard the xiao taper off.

“WangJi….how….how are you feeling?”

“..........tired…….” he spoke softly into the silence as he glanced away from those warm brown eyes. He felt almost numb, empty and disconnected as he noticed those sore lines across his back. They were throbbing and pulsing but he ignored it. 

“How long?” 

“3 months, 2 since….since the night you left…”

Lan Zhan grew quiet again. For a long, long while he said nothing content to sit in silence with his brother before he spoke again.

“And…..and A-Yuan?”

“The child? He slept for about a month, poor little thing had a terrible fever. He’s right there WangJi” Lan XiChen pointed at a small little boy curled up on a thick pile of blankets on the floor next to his bed and Lan Zhan turned his head to look, his golden eyes growing distant and soft. 

“He’s a Wen?”

“He’s…...he’s mine.” 

Lan WangJi whispered softly as he fell back into silence but his eyes answered him just the same. This child was a Wen and for whatever reason, Lan Zhan was bound and determined to keep him and Lan XiChen didn’t have the heart to say no. Besides he had grown quite fond of him seeing as how he played with him and kept him company since the day he woke up.

With no story for him nor any explanation, Lan XiChen had kept him here in the jingshi, bringing him toys and books to keep him busy, even taking his meals here with the little guy until Lan Zhan awoke and accounted for him himself. 

“I’ll speak to shifu, we can train him here as a disciple. I’m sure one of our young mothers would be glad to keep him. He is a bright, cheerful child.”

“I…..I want to keep him. I’ll adopt him…” Lan Zhan spoke again, haltingly as though he expected Lan XiChen to scold or rebuke him. Lan XiChen looked at him again seeing the wealth of sorrow glowing in those amber eyes and he read him loud and clear.

This child was Wei WuXian’s. Whether by blood or affection, little A-Yuan had some tie to Wei Ying that Lan Zhan just couldn’t bear to part with and Lan XiChen nodded again. 

“Very well, WangJi. I’ll talk to shifu.” He spoke reassuringly as he dropped his hand to ruffle the boy’s soft, black hair.

“He’s very sweet, he calls you Rich-gege” Lan XiChen chuckled lightly, his eyes growing fond as he considered his new nephew. 

“He doesn’t remember anything else though, I fear the fever was too much for him. He must be what 2? 3 years old?”

“Brother…..” Lan Zhan spoke abruptly, turning those piercing golden eyes on him again.

“I want to play Inquiry….” 

And Lan XiChen sighed. In all honesty, he had expected that and he felt his heart grow heavy in his chest as he dreaded the words he had to say.

“WangJi…...I will play with you but…..but I should tell you, the four Sects have already played it with their best cultivators. They played it for an entire month. No one can…..can summon him.”

Lan XiChen trailed off softly, his heart clenching in his chest as he watched the heavy veil of grief drift over his brother’s face. Lan Zhan shifted again as he tried to get up, his arms weak and shaking and Lan XiChen moved forward to help him.

He slowly eased Lan Zhan up into a sitting position, sweat beading on his brow at the pain lancing through him. His eyes narrowed slightly as he shifted up a little more firmly. He couldn’t sit up straight, the wounds pulling tight across his back as he held back a grimace and he sighed softly looking down from his brother’s concerned grey eyes. 

He felt so impossibly weak and small before the sturdy, strong form of his brother and for a moment, one single moment in time he wanted to throw himself into his arms like a child, begging for comfort, begging for something, anything to take away this unending sorrow. 

He sniffed the sting in his nose away and blinked back the tears on his long lashes as he studied the floor in an impossible effort to hold back the grief in his heart.

Lan XiChen took one look at those shivering lashes glittering with his tears and he pulled his little brother into his arms anyway. It didn’t matter that they were 2 full grown men. It didn’t matter that he was a Sect leader to one of the four great clans. It didn’t matter that there were 33 throbbing lashes on his back. Lan XiChen wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tight. 

His heart aching and hurting as Lan Zhan cried, his tears soaking into the shoulder of his robes. Lan Zhan cried quietly, softly, nothing but his shivering shoulders as proof of his grief. And for a long, long while they sat there in the low candlelight of the jingshi, the long sticks of sandalwood burning down into ashes. 

Lan XiChen gazed over his brother’s bowed head as he looked at the little boy in the blankets next to them and he held back the heavy weight of his own melancholy at Lan Zhan’s unending sorrow. Oh what he would give to take that weight from him. To bring back Wei WuXian for no reason other than to ease this heavy, heavy grief.

He felt that pain as though it were his own and for a long, long time he held his brother as though somehow he could ease his sadness, ease this suffocating weight but he knew it was hopeless. Nothing could bring Wei WuXian back and nothing but that would lift Lan Zhan’s heart. 

Long after the joss sticks had burned down, Lan Zhan finally grew still in his arms and he pulled back with a sniff. He looked down again as he spoke with his hoarse, soft voice.

“I want to play brother…”

Lan XiChen nodded, his own eyes suspiciously moist and he went to grab the long elegant guqin WangJi. All the Lan Sect disciples were students of music and though some learned the xiao or the flute as well, the seven-stringed zither was the most powerful of all the instruments and all the Lan Sect masters were skilled on it.

The guqin was a beautiful instrument with thick camphor wood that gleamed in the low light of the candles and Lan XiChen laid it gently in front of Lan Zhan as he settled himself back down lifting Liebing to lips as he waited for WangJi to play. 

After another long silent moment, Lan Zhan settled his hands across the strings and the soft, somber sounds of the guqin and the xiao drifted around them, the long haunting notes curling through the air and suffusing the jingshi with sorrow. 

It was as if Lan Zhan’s heartache lay across those strings, each note soft and full of all that nameless longing, the deep tones of the xiao weaving in and out with as much spiritual energy as Lan XiChen could provide. 

He poured it into their song with dim hope as he willed it to succeed. He almost begged for Wei WuXian through the long, somber notes around them. As though through their sheer will, those bright grey eyes and sun kissed smile would appear before them again. 

All through the night, the Jades of Lan played that beautiful, haunting melody. They played and played and played that song until their bodies grew tired and the pale shafts of sunlight drifted in around them from the shutters.

For as long as Lan Zhan could play, XiChen accompanied him, those low tones so full of grief and longing and despair as they called for Wei WuXian but no laughing voice answered them. The silence after Lan Zhan had finally fallen still was so, so heavy, almost suffocating them with the terrible weight of truth.

And the truth was no one could summon Wei WuXian, not even the Jades of Lan. And for the next 13 years, the drifting, haunting, pleading notes of Inquiry would echo throughout the Cloud Recesses in the darkness of the night, the sounds of the guqin so somber and desolate as Lan Zhan called for someone who could no longer answer him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh.....my heart.... I dunno what is wrong with me to write stuff like this lol each one of these chapters was supposed to be a separate oneshot kinda like angst in 3 parts lmfao but I decided to string it all together instead. There will be one more chapter and is2g it will be happy lol thanks for reading. I can't believe how many of you stuck around through all this angst. I really didn't expect it, I thought like idk maybe 20 people would read it at most lol since its like....pure angst rofl... I'm so, so happy you guys stuck it out with me. Thanks again and I'll definitely give them their happy ending ^.~


	4. Cloud Recesses

Lan WangJi sat at his writing table, his white robes spread gracefully around him. His focused gaze traveled the length of the report in front of him. His long hair fluttered gently in the spring breeze that drifted in from the open windows. The night was cool and comforting. He paused for a moment as he wrote a simple note at the bottom before turning the page as he continued reviewing the juniors’ night hunt reports.

Suddenly he felt a weight across his shoulders as someone leaned into his back, the smell of wood and fire drifting around his nose, delicate arms sliding down to frame his chest from behind as a clever voice spoke right next to his ear. 

“Eh Lan Zhan? Are you still grading reports?”

Wei Ying leaned in further dropping his full weight onto Lan Zhan’s shoulders as he glanced at the report in his hand.

“Mn”

“How is it so far? That’s JingYi’s right? 

“Mn” 

“Looks like this one’s better than the last one, only 1 note so far” Wei Ying laughed lightly, his sparkling voice caressing Lan Zhan’s ears and sliding down into his belly warming him up from the inside. 

“Mn. He is getting better.” Lan WangJi spoke as he flipped the 2nd page. The warm weight of Wei Ying against his back was so comforting and reassuring. These small affections were balm to his soul. Even though it was already 3 months after their marriage and 6 after that overwhelming night in Guanyin Temple, Lan Zhan still couldn’t come to terms with these tiny, gentle intimacies.

He craved them as surely as a starving man craved food. He wrapped them around his heart just as Wei Ying wrapped his arms around him in the dim candlelight of the jingshi. He was still unused to how physical Wei WuXian was in his affections, always touching him, hugging him, leaning against him with cuddles and snuggles and Lan Zhan felt his ears grow hot just as a small, private smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was so faint, his smiles always quiet and small, just enough to paint his amber gaze warm and caress the corners of his eyes. 

His heart was so full in this moment; this quiet, soft night warm with candlelight and the gentle spring breeze as he sat there in Wei Ying’s arms. He wondered for a brief moment if it was possible to die from happiness. After that passionate confession in Guanyin Temple that had turned his world upside down, it seemed that all Wei Ying’s reservations had disappeared and everyday was chock full of loving caresses and affectionate hugs and sweet little kisses. 

Wei Ying’s beautiful grey eyes nothing but love and tenderness, that once cold gaze so open and warm. And the Wei Ying of now simply could not keep his hands to himself. It wasn’t lust although they shared plenty of that, it was so much more. Wei Ying’s heart seemed endless, overflowing with gentleness and Lan Zhan absorbed it all like water to a dying flower. 

He was so parched, so starved for these moments. He had spent 13 years in longing. Night after night, nightmares had plagued him. Dreams of those deep grey eyes and passionate, devouring kisses drowning him only to wake up gasping to a cold, empty bed knowing with aching clarity that Wei Ying was gone. How he had cried. How he had suffocated in that grief. He thought he’d die under all the sorrow in his veins. Every day nothing but a grey emptiness that seemed endless. 

The only ray of light across his dim, dark life was the little boy A-Yuan. That little, little boy who had trailed after Wei WuXian as though the YiLing Patriarch had hung the moon and painted the stars in the sky. This tiny connection to Wei Ying had been the only thing that kept him alive, kept him from drowning in his despair. Every night he’d lay down to sleep not even caring if he’d died in his nightmares only for that little hand to reach out and caress his cheek in the morning, pulling him from looping dreams of sparkling smiles and unfathomable grey eyes. 

For a long, long time, Lan Zhan had pulled on A-Yuan’s lightness and happiness like a lifeline, so sure that without that bright, bubbly child he would have been dead already, the ache in his heart unbearable. And it was like this that Lan Zhan had taken one day after another after another, morosely surprised every morning when he woke up again, the cold arms of death denying him the peace his heart so desperately wanted. 

“Ah what high praise HanGuang-Jun” Wei Ying laughed in his ear again pulling Lan Zhan from his thoughts as he felt him lean into him a little more, those teasing lips he loved so much brushing the pink shell of his ear. Wei Ying glanced at Lan Zhan’s face in profile for a moment almost struck dumb by his incredible beauty.

The Second Jade of Lan was quite simply the single most beautiful human being he had ever seen both in this life and the last. His pale skin so flawless he might as well have been a carved work of art set in stone but it was those breathtaking golden eyes that set Wei Ying’s heart racing, thumping dully in his chest as he felt mischief rear up in him as he spied those pink ears. 

He absolutely loved Lan Zhan’s blushing ears and he leaned in closer to drag the gentle tip of his tongue along that flushed lobe. He grinned like a cat with cream when Lan Zhan jumped under him and he moved to do it again.

“Wei Ying…..what are you doing?”

“Why I’m distracting you my handsome HanGuang-Jun” Wei Ying cackled with that sparkling laughter again, his voice hot against his skin, alight with mischief and he sucked the shell of Lan Zhan’s ear into his mouth caressing it with the delicate tip of his tongue almost purring as Lan Zhan stiffened up under his arms with a short, stilted gasp.

“Stop teasing me” he huffed, his hand moving up to clasp the loose one hanging at his chest. 

“Hmmm…..no” 

Wei Ying laughed again as he moved lower, dragging his tongue in a hot wet line along the long, elegant column of his neck. His hand turning into Lan Zhan’s to thread his fingers through his husband’s. 

Lan Zhan swallowed heavily as that tongue dragged along his skin leaving fire in its wake. He closed his eyes as he tried to get a hold of himself. He had to finish these reports then pen a letter to the LanlingJin Sect since the juniors wanted to night hunt with Jin Ling, then he had to review a request for aid from the next town over then he---

Wei Ying dropped his face into the base of his neck and sucked with a powerful pull, pressing his teeth lightly into the sensitive skin to leave a vivid purple petal behind. 

“Nnn!”

Wei Ying slipped his other hand into the folds of Lan Zhan’s robes, dragging his fingers in a long caress across his chest as he kissed trails up and down his neck. 

“Mmm…” he hummed in satisfaction as Lan Zhan almost seemed to tremble in his arms. If it wasn’t so unbearably hot to watch Lan Zhan fall apart, Wei Ying would have laughed at how flustered his husband got. It was endlessly entertaining and a little astounding since they made passionate love everyday. But it seemed that no matter how often they ended up in each other’s arms, Lan Zhan still reacted like a blushing maiden. Their encounters always started with little shivers up and down HanGuang-Jun’s body and Wei Ying loved it. He loved how sweet and gentle and passionate his husband was. 

He pulled his other hand free of Lan Zhan’s and tugged the collar of those prim and proper Lan sect robes open, slipping them down Lan Zhan’s shoulders to bare his blushing skin. His face never betrayed him, remaining blank and beautiful, that pale skin clear of embarrassment but for all that his face was perfect, the rest of his body betrayed him easily. His blushing shoulders looked so tempting in the golden glow of the jingshi and Wei Ying pressed a gentle, sweet kiss to the skin in front of him before he paused for a moment, leaning back to look. 

Lan Zhan’s back was a mess of scars, long crisscrossing lines of raised skin that covered every inch of those broad shoulders, maring that beautiful skin in arcing ridges all the way down to the small of his back. He reached out with soft fingertips as he dragged them slowly along those rough lines. His heart clenching in his chest. 

~*~

_Lan XiChen stared at him and forcefully drew his hand away, speaking in disbelief, the quiet of Guanyin Temple almost loud around them “So you really know nothing?! Have you forgotten how he received those whip scars? Have you not seen the brand mark at his chest?”_

_Wei WuXian, “Whip scars?!” He grabbed Lan XiChen again, “Sect Leader Lan, I really don’t know. Please tell me, just how did he get those injuries? How could they possibly be related to me?!?”_

_Anger could be seen on Lan XiChen’s face, “If it were not related to you, could he have done those to himself without a reason?!”_

_ZeWu-Jun had always been an extremely patient person, but now that Lan WangJi was involved, he was truly angered. But after he scrutinized Wei WuXian’s expression, he suppressed some of his anger, trying, “Your… memory is damaged?”_

_Wei WuXian, “My memory?” He immediately tried as hard as he could to think of things that he’d forgotten, “I don’t remember my memory being… Yes!”_

_There was indeed a portion of his memories that was blurry._

_The massacre of the Nightless City!_

_On the night back then, he thought Wen Qing and Wen Ning had already been turned to dust, he watched the cultivational world charge so passionately at him, he even saw Jiang YanLi die before him with his own eyes. In the end, he lost control and put the Tiger Seal together, letting it succumb to slaughter. Those killed by the corpses under the Seal’s command became new corpses, creating an endless flow of killing puppets to build that hell of blood._

_Afterwards, even though Wei WuXian could manage to support himself and remain standing, amidst the blur, he felt himself leave the slaughter house of a city. He was unconscious for a long time, and when he woke up again, he’d been sitting at the bottom of Yiling’s Burial Mound for quite a long time._

_Lan XiChen, “Do you remember now?”_

_Wei WuXian murmured, “The time at Nightless City? I-I’ve always thought I somehow walked back on my own. Could it be…”_

_Lan XiChen almost laughed out of the rage, “Young Master Wei! On the night at Nightless City, what faced you was how many people? Three thousand! No matter what a prodigy you were, to be able to escape unscathed in those circumstances? Absolutely impossible!”_

_Wei WuXian, “What… What did Lan Zhan do?”_

_Lan XiChen, “What WangJi did—if you do not remember, I am afraid he would never tell you in this life, and you would never ask either. Fine, then. Let me be the one to say it.” He continued, “Young Master Wei, in that night, you took the two halves of the Stygian Tiger Seal and pieced them together. After you were satisfied with the killing, you were a spent arrow as well. WangJi was injured on your rampage. He was in no better shape than you, barely supporting himself by leaning on Bichen. In spite of this, as he saw you stumble away, he immediately followed._

_“Right then, not many people were still conscious. I, too, was almost unable to move, and I could only watch as WangJi, whose spiritual powers were clearly about to be drained, staggered towards you. He brought you onto Bichen as soon as he grabbed you, and you two left._

_“Four hours later, my spiritual powers, having finally been restored, I hurried back to the GusuLan Sect in search for assistance. I was worried that if those from another sect found you first, WangJi would be considered your accomplice. The best scenario was his name being forever tainted, and the worst his life being taken away right then. Thus, along with Uncle, we chose thirty-three seniors who had always thought highly of WangJi and searched for two days on our swords in secrecy. Only then did we find signs of you two within the Yiling region. WangJi hid you in a cave. When we arrived, you sat blankly on a rock within the cave. Holding your hand, WangJi was giving you spiritual energy. He kept on whispering to you. But throughout the whole time, you repeated the same two words at him._

_“‘Get lost’!”_

_Wei WuXian’s throat was dry. His eyes were red as well. He couldn’t say a single thing. Lan XiChen continued, “My uncle suddenly appeared before him and scolded him, asking for him to explain things. As if he knew all along he would be discovered by us, he said that there was nothing to explain, that this was it. Growing up, he had never talked back to Uncle and me even once. But for you, not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the GusuLan Sect. He heavily injured all thirty-three of the seniors we asked to come…”_

_Wei WuXian dug his hands into his hair, “… I-I didn’t know… I really…”_

_Apart from repeating how he didn’t know, he wasn’t able to say anything else. Lan XiChen restrained himself for a moment, yet still continued, “Thirty-three whip scars! He was punished in one go, once for each person. You should know how much it hurts when it lands on your body, for how long you have to rest to recover! After he went out of his way to send you back to Burial Mound and returned in such low spirits to receive his punishment, how long he kneeled before the Wall of Rules! I told him when I went to see him, Young Master Wei had already made a grave mistake, there was no use augmenting it. But he said… that he could not say with certainty whether what you did was right or wrong, but no matter what, he was willing to be responsible for all of the consequences alongside you. They say those years were him reflecting on his mistakes, but in reality he was entirely bedridden! Even so, when he knew of your passing away, he still dragged such a body to Burial Mound to take one last look, no matter what…_

_“With the ways in which he looked and talked to you when he saved you and hid you in that cave, even someone who was blind or deaf could perceive his feelings, which was why my uncle was in such anger. WangJi was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. In his whole life he had been honest and righteous and immaculate—you were the only mistake he made! And you say… And you say you do not know. Young Master Wei, after you returned in your body, how did you pester him and confess to him? Every night… Every night, you had to… And you say you do not know? If you did not know, why did you do such things?”_

_Wei WuXian really wanted to go back to all those times and kill himself. It was precisely because he didn’t know that he dared do such things!_

_He suddenly felt terrified. If Lan WangJi didn’t know that he couldn’t at all recall what happened in the few days after the massacre at Nightless City, if Lan WangJi thought that he knew about his feelings all along, just how horrible were the things he did after he came back?_

_At first, he did those shameful, theatrical things in order to make Lan WangJi feel disgust and throw him out of the Cloud Recesses so that they wouldn’t meet each other again, going their separate ways. Lan WangJi wouldn’t have failed to see what his real attitude was. But even when this was the case… he still chose to keep him by his side, refusing to give Jiang Cheng the chance to approach and make things difficult for him. He answered all questions, granted all requests, indulged him and forgave him again and again. Even when faced with Wei WuXian’s myriad of almost cruel teasing, he was still able to hold himself from crossing the line._

Wei Ying felt his gaze grow soft as he trailed his long fingertips across those scars as tenderness welled up inside him. His heart was thudding heavily in his chest.

_Oh Lan Zhan..._

He leaned forward and kissed the longest scar that cut a slanting line down his back. He kissed it gently, softly, his heart in his mouth as he felt all those endless feelings bubble up in his chest. He caressed those scars tenderly.

He moved down Lan Zhan’s back laying soft kisses across every single one and he felt a few tears well up in his eyes. 

_Oh my Lan Zhan…._

How he hated those scars on his back, hated the pain and misery Lan Zhan must have experienced under those lashes. How he wished he could go back in time and take every one of those strikes, taken that punishment that should have been his. Lan Zhan was honorable and just, the pinnacle of righteousness and he did not deserve those scars no matter what Lan QiRen thought. 

Wei Ying sniffed as he kissed a smaller scar on Lan Zhan’s shoulder and spoke with a heavy voice, his words deep and affected as he whispered against another mark.

“Lan Zhan…”

His hand rose to caress another long, arching scar. The shackles of the past were gone. The impossible circumstances that had ended any relationship they could have ever had were distant memories. In this space and time, nothing separated them anymore and Wei Ying’s words came freely to his lips. He spoke again with that soft, deep voice. His words were shaky and full of emotion as he murmured into the silence of the jingshi.

“Lan Zhan…I….I’m sorry” 

He pressed another kiss to those long curving scars as though he could roll back time and erase every single mark that dared to mar the beautiful skin under his mouth. 

Lan Zhan turned his head slowly as he felt Wei Ying press another kiss to his back. He felt his heart swell in his chest as endless waves of emotion crashed through him and he spoke too. His voice coming easily to his lips as though all those aching emotions from the past meant nothing anymore. Nothing and no one stood between them.

“It’s not your fault Wei Ying. I chose you and I would choose you again.”

“But….but why Lan Zhan, these must have hurt so much….”

Lan Zhan swallowed around all the tumbling words that built up in his chest. Before he could never express himself. Uncertainty coloring his life especially with Wei Ying. He had never been able to speak around him. Never been able to string the right words together unsure and nervous in the face of those unreadable grey eyes. Wei Ying had seemed too foreign, too far away from him throughout the years before his summoning. But here in the dim light of the jingshi, Lan Zhan’s mind was open and his heart was clear. It was as if no barrier existed between them anymore, no shackles chained his heart down.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to say but he let the words come, flowing freely between them. 

“I…..I loved you. I couldn’t let you die that night”

“I…..had no idea Lan Zhan. I thought…..I don’t know what I thought...I was so….”

_So distracted, so full of resentful energy, so busy and worried about everything and everyone…_

He had been so surrounded by darkness and impossible responsibilities that even Lan Zhan’s light had grown dim in the wake of the chaos that had been his life. 

“Mn...doesn’t matter, I would have done it regardless.”

“It…..it does matter, Lan Zhan. I….I was so….I wasn’t in a place to accept love back then but…. but I think…..I had loved you too. You were my first you know. The first and only one I had ever thought of in that way, had been with the way I had been with you….”

Wei Ying trailed off, his voice so quiet and full of emotion and Lan Zhan shifted. He turned around and pulled Wei Ying across his lap, his arms wrapping around him in lieu of a reply. He held him so tight against his body, so many words catching in his mouth and he tried to sort through what he wanted to say. 

His heart was almost throbbing in his chest with all the love rushing through him and he spoke again, haltingly. 

“I had…...I had hoped….I had wanted you so badly….I….I didn’t….. know what to do with myself…”

Wei Ying looked up into those brilliant golden eyes as he lay there in the circle of Lan Zhan’s arms. They stared at each other for a moment, their feelings almost crackling in their gaze. 

“I……..I dreamed of those nights…...I had so many dreams about you Lan Zhan…”

“Mn…..me too…..you…..you were my first kiss…..my first…...everything…..my….first…..love…..my first intimate moment…….you…..were all I wanted…..all…..I had ever wanted….”

Wei Ying grew silent as he considered those words. His heart was almost hurting with all the love in his chest. 

“Ah Lan Zhan…..I….really can’t take it when you talk that…” he laughed softly for a moment. 

“I should tell you though…...you….weren’t my first kiss…..I wish you had been though…” He confessed, a little uncertain as he wondered what Lan Zhan would think about that. 

“Back on Phoenix Mountain at the night hunt, when I was blindfolded, someone kissed me that day. I don’t know who, she had never shown herself…”

Lan Zhan’s breath hitched for a moment in shock and Wei Ying hurried to supply. 

“But…..but I really do wish it had been you!” He looked up worriedly, his grey eyes concerned as he wondered what Lan Zhan was thinking in that moment, those amber eyes staring into his with something odd in his gaze. 

“.....Uhm……..I…….”

“Really Lan Zhan! I didn’t know who it was they took me by surprise and---”

“It was me….” Lan Zhan cut in quickly, his ears growing so red they were almost glowing in the dim light of the jingshi. 

“......I kissed you that day….”

“...........” Wei WuXian was so shocked his eyes grew round with surprise. “Oh?! It was really you?!” 

Lan WangJi swallowed heavily, his adam’s apple bobbing nervously, “I…”

Wei Ying blinked up at him, completely astonished. 

“Lan Zhan, who could’ve known you’d do such a thing?!”

Lan WangJi hung his head in profound shame and embarrassment as he looked away from Wei Ying’s bright, sparkling eyes. 

“You know, I’ve always thought some shy girl did it because she had a crush on me and didn’t dare say it. Have you…..have you had dirty thoughts about me ever since then?”

“……...” Lan Zhan’s voice sounded dim and muffled as he spoke, his voice almost hoarse “I, back then, I knew I was wrong. Very wrong.”

Wei WuXian recalled suddenly how Lan WangJi had broken a tree in half alone in the woods when he found him later and he asked again, “Was that why you were so mad?”

Wei Ying had thought he was mad about someone or something else. He had had no idea that Lan WangJi was mad at himself—mad that he acted upon his urges, that he couldn’t control himself, that he took advantage of another in a way that was neither righteous nor abiding by his sect rules.

Seeing how low Lan Zhan hung his head, almost as if he was reflecting upon his mistakes again, Wei WuXian slipped his hand under his chin tugging his face back up. 

“Alright, stop struggling so much. I’m beyond happy that you kissed me that day. It was my first kiss, after all. Congratulations, HanGuang-Jun.” He smiled warmly as he tried to catch Lan Zhan’s eyes. A soft, gentle smile curving his mouth as he considered his blushing, flustered husband.

Lan WangJi suddenly looked at him then, his golden eyes wide as he asked, his hoarse voice almost trembling. 

“First kiss?”

“Yeah, or else what did you think?”

Lan WangJi stared straight at him. Something strange glowed in his eyes. He started, “Then…”

“...............?....”

“Then what? Stopping in the middle of the sentence isn’t your style, Lan Zhan.”

“Then, back then, why did you… did you…”

Wei WuXian was confused as he looked into those beautiful eyes. 

“Why what?”

Lan WangJi’s lips moved slowly as he tested the words on his lips, “… Why didn’t you resist?”

Wei WuXian paused for a moment, blinking up at him, shocked for a second time as he considered that question.

Lan WangJi’s voice sounded hoarse and almost muffled again, “You… clearly did not know who the person was, so why didn’t you resist? And afterward, why did you tell me…”

_Tell him what?_

Wei WuXian thought for a moment, wracking his memory until he finally remembered with a lopsided quirk to his lips.

Back when he ‘ran into’ Lan WangJi, he proudly showed off to him, saying things like he had lots of experience, like nobody would’ve dared kiss Lan WangJi and Lan WangJi definitely wouldn’t kiss someone else, even something like how he thought Lan WangJi would never give anyone his first kiss for the rest of his life…

All of a sudden, Wei Ying threw his head back and broke into roaring laughter.

“Hahahahahahahahaha…”

Laughing, Wei WuXian threw his arms around Lan Zhan and hugged him tight, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

“With all that, back then you were really that angry because you thought I’d really kissed someone else, weren’t you? Are you an idiot, Lan Zhan?! You fucking believed all that nonsense! Only a lil’ fuddy-duddy like you would believe me hahahahahaha…”

His laughter was too loud, too unbridled. Finally out of patience, Lan WangJi pressed him back into the floor kissing him breathlessly all thoughts of reports and letters gone in the wake of Wei Ying’s sparkling laughter and his hot, red mouth.

“Mmm Lan Er-gege” He hummed back into their sweet kiss. Lan Zhan kissed him deeply and gently sliding his tongue along Wei Ying’s in a slow glide revelling in every sighing moan against his mouth. 

He moved his broad hand to cradle Wei WuXian’s cheek, tenderness welling up inside him and leaving his fingers gentle and warm. His heart was so full, so unbearably full at the happiness in his chest and he pulled back for a moment meeting those beautiful grey eyes. 

Whether it was luck or chance that Mo XuanYu had had grey eyes as well didn’t really matter because the sparkle in them, the glittering light within those beautiful eyes that left them brilliant and almost glowing was all Wei Ying, Wei Ying’s deep, vast heart and Lan Zhan swallowed under that gaze. 

It seemed even after that incredible confession in Guanyin Temple, even after they were married, even after all the times they had lost themselves in each other’s arms, those grey eyes still moved him, still shook the heart in his chest. He stared into those breathtaking eyes reading all the love, all the unending love in those depths and he felt his breath catch in his lungs. He froze for a long, long moment just staring at those beautiful grey eyes that gazed back at him. 

Wei Ying was the one to move then, he leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then he pressed another one to his left eye, then his right one, then his nose and over his cheeks. Wei WuXian peppered his face with tender kisses, each one rife with all the love in his heart. 

One after the other, he trailed light little kisses across Lan Zhan’s face leaving love in his wake. It left Lan Zhan almost lightheaded as he tried to wrap his mind around the still unreal feeling that this man loved him, had married him, was actually alive again; after those 13 years it was such an amazing, impossible reality that sometimes Lan Zhan feared he’d wake up from this dream; wake up to his cold, lonely bed again but Wei Ying’s little kisses grounded him, anchored him here in this moment. After a few hundred kisses Wei Ying pressed the last one to his lips pausing to speak again. 

“You’re really great Lan Zhan.” He smiled a soft, sweet smile.

”I like you.” He glanced at those pink ears again before continuing with that deep, gentle voice.

“Or in other words….” He leaned back into the jingshi floor, tilting his chin, his lashes fluttering almost coyly. 

“I fancy you…..I….. love you...” He stared up into those beautiful, breathtaking golden eyes, amber with warmth as Lan Zhan listened to those words. Those very same words that had pulled his heart into his mouth and turned his entire world upside down so many months ago in Guanyin Temple.

“I want you…” Wei Ying lifted his fingers and laid his hand against Lan Zhan’s cheek, his heart in his words and he continued with the confession that had taken Lan Zhan’s heart by storm. 

“.....I can’t leave you….I whatever you, I…..I want to night-hunt with you for the rest of my life. I really don’t want anyone but you—it can’t be anyone but you Lan Zhan”

Lan Zhan felt his breath hitch as feelings and emotions burned through his chest. He gasped hoarsely as he stared down into those grey eyes, once so foreign, so distant were so clear, so painfully clear with all the swirling love in his gaze. Those brilliant eyes that called to him, that threatened to drown him were so very warm, so incredibly tender and Lan Zhan felt his eyes grow moist as tiny, glittering tears caught on his long, shivering lashes. 

And he whispered back, tripping over those very same words that caught on his tongue.

“… fancy you…” he leaned down and kissed Wei Ying’s soft cheek. He turned to the other one and pressed another fluttering kiss to his skin.

“… love you…”

Wei WuXian smiled as another kiss was left on the very tip of his nose. Then another soft kiss was pressed to his forehead. 

“....want you…”

Lan WangJi continued with his hoarse trembling voice. 

“Cannot leave you… do not want anyone but you… it cannot be anyone but you!” He finished heavily as he laid the gentlest and most delicate kiss on Wei Ying’s lips, his body trembling with the torrent of love cascading through his veins. He kissed him deeply, so deeply as though he could meld them together right there on the jingshi floor. 

“Hmmm Er-gege” Wei Ying sighed such a full, contented sigh and Lan Zhan turned his face to nuzzle his cheek with affection. He trailed his knuckles down his other cheek gently as they got caught up in each other, the world fading around them, nothing in it but them and the richness of their love. 

“Lan…..Lan Zhan….I love you…..so…..so much….” Wei Ying choked out overwhelmed with love for him, overwhelmed with the reality he found himself in. How could this possibly be real? How could Lan Zhan, the man he had dreamt of for so long be here in his arms, bearing his heart to him with so much _love_?

It was almost inconceivable. After so much bloodshed, so much hatred and violence in his past, what could he have done to deserve this incredible man? This man who stood for justice and honor, who was so righteous and immaculate. How could he possibly love someone so dark and chaotic like him? How could someone with so much light offer him so much, offer him his heart, offer him the rest of his life?

“I feel so…….so blessed to have you….” Wei Ying sniffed his voice growing hoarse as he laid there under Lan Zhan’s comforting, heavy body. 

“I don’t…..I don’t deserve you Lan Zhan…” He trailed off, moved by the wealth of gentle tenderness Lan Zhan laid over him as HanGuang-Jun leaned back a little, just a little to gaze down at him properly. 

“Wei Ying…..you are all I want. You are worth every one of these lashes and so much more. You have the deepest and most beautiful heart I have ever seen in this life and the last. No one loves as much as you do, no one gives as much as you do and I am honored to love you.” 

Lan Zhan spoke sincerely, staring deeply into Wei Ying’s eyes as he willed him to believe it, willed him to understand just how much Lan Zhan loved him, had always loved him and he confessed one more secret he held in his heart.

“I have loved you since that very first night we met on the rooftops Wei Ying…”

Wei WuXian gasped then and he froze for a moment, his eyes growing wide. He blinked once, then twice before he surged forward toppling Lan Zhan back onto the floor as he pressed a rushed, breathless, wild kiss to his lips. He kissed him passionately because he had no words. 

He had no words to express how full his heart was in that moment. Nothing he could say would be adequate, no words he could string together could properly explain the tight, thudding of the heart in his chest and that endless love cascading through his veins. He loved Lan Zhan more than he thought possible and he had to have him. He had to show him with his body what he couldn’t show him with his words. He needed to make love to Lan Zhan, to show him the shape of his heart. 

And Lan Zhan let him. Lan Zhan wrapped his arms around Wei Ying as they toppled backwards, falling to the jingshi floor kissing wildly, their quick gasps and breaths through their noses loud around them.

They panted heavily against each other’s lips as Lan Zhan moaned softly. He slid his heavy palms down Wei Ying’s body over the soft dip of his lower back to palm the firm swells of his ass. He filled his hands with those soft, curving cheeks pressing his fingers into the skin as he grabbed them possessively. Wei Ying moaned into his mouth as he arched his hips down pressing against Lan Zhan’s almost instinctively as he craved him. 

He craved this moment, craved the love in Lan Zhan’s mouth and he ached to express his own, ached to explain just how much he loved him. How much he loved those breathtaking eyes that glowed amber with the richness of his feelings and the depth of his soft heart, how his sturdy arms seemed so strong as if he could hold the whole world at bay, how his soft smile painted his life in a rainbow of colors every time he saw the gentle crinkles in the corners of his eyes, how nothing ever seemed too bad behind Lan Zhan’s broad back, how those blushing ears filled him with warmth but words seemed so insignificant, so flat, so inadequate in the wake of all the love he felt.

He gasped brokenly into Lan Zhan’s mouth with an almost sob on his lips as he arched his body rubbing their cocks together as they began to swell under the passion in their kiss. He canted his hips forward and back, and forward and back as they grew harder against each other. 

“La….Lan…..mmmm…” Wei Ying moaned as those broad hands flexed on his ass dragging him down firmly as Lan Zhan lifted up, their bodies growing hot and hard. 

Wei Ying slanted his mouth over Lan Zhan’s sliding between his lips in a slick, wet line. He flicked his tongue against him, teasing and flirting. He lifted up to caress the roof of his mouth before dragging back along Lan Zhan’s tongue again, their breaths coming fast and hard in their noses as the air between them swirled with sandalwood and bonfires. 

Wei Ying pulled back a little nipping Lan Zhan’s bottom lip, already growing swollen and red from their wild kisses as he leaned up to look at him. Lan Zhan was already breathtakingly beautiful but here in the low candlelight of the jingshi, his eyes glowed amber with his passion, his lips parted and wet, a faint blush across the elegant arch of his cheeks under the long, black fan of his thick lashes, he was almost otherworldly in his beauty, the very definition of seduction. Lan Zhan licked his lips, dragging one long, slow line across it as though to taste their kiss again and Wei Ying swallowed heavily.

His sparkling eyes dropped to trace the swollen curve of that lip with desire arcing down his back. He didn’t realize Lan Zhan was looking at him just as intensely. Wei Ying had no idea just how sexy he looked there under the low glow of the candles. His eyes were a thundercloud grey with heat, his own lips kiss swollen and red, still wet from their kiss, a flush dusting his cheeks alluringly. 

Lan Zhan started to reach for him again, mesmerized by the man in his arms but Wei Ying was quicker. He leaned into the elegant curve of Lan Zhan’s neck to drag his hot tongue along that porcelain skin. He licked a heavy line all the way up to nip at that pink ear lobe. He sucked it into his mouth with a light caress of his teeth, tugging it and pulling on it with his lips as he moaned again, Lan Zhan’s hands clenching on his ass as he heard that low muffled groan. 

Lan Zhan dropped his head back to the jingshi floor as Wei Ying made a mess out of him, his hot hands sliding along his chest with possessive fingertips and he moved back down Lan Zhan’s neck leaving trails of fire on his skin.

Everywhere Wei Ying touched seemed to burn Lan Zhan and he gasped as that heavy mouth dropped to the base of his neck again leaving behind a sucking bruise to match the one he had left earlier. Wei Ying kissed that violet he had left on Lan Zhan’s pale skin before he moved down further leaving trails of hot open mouthed kisses. Down and down he sucked and licked along the dips and swells of his muscles pausing to flick against his belly button as he lifted his hand to press heavily against the hot hard cock curving in Lan Zhan’s white pants. 

He laid his whole hand on it rubbing up and down as he teased his husband, his mouth moving even lower as he tugged at Lan Zhan’s belt pulling it off before he slipped his hands into the waistband of his trousers. 

He wrapped his long fingers around that hard length answering Lan Zhan’s moan with his own, his lips almost vibrating against the sucking bite he left against his abdomen. He tugged his hand up and down slowly, heat running up his spine as he panted, Lan Zhan was so hard and it was so hot to think that he was this way because of him. 

It was its own brand of seduction to think that this prim and proper cultivator would be so lewd, so achingly hard and dripping because of him and he slipped his hand back out yanking Lan Zhan’s pants down to stare at the long cock in front of him, hunger and desire flickering in his dark gaze. It was so hard it curved up towards his belly button and Wei Ying licked his lips, his grey eyes growing heavier as lust spiked in his veins and he leaned forward. 

He licked one long line up that shaft tasting Lan Zhan on his tongue as their twin moans echoed around them. Then he filled his mouth with it, sucking it as deeply as possible. He hollowed out his cheeks forcing it down, his eyes watering when it brushed the back of his throat. 

Lan Zhan was so big, he almost couldn’t get down it, wrapping his hand around the base he couldn’t fit in his mouth. He moved then sucking up before sliding down again, his eyes snapping up to meet Lan Zhan’s hot gaze, those long, black lashes falling lower to frame those burning golden eyes. He couldn’t get enough of Lan Zhan’s pleasure wrecked face and he sucked another hot pull on the length in his mouth just to see those lashes flutter again as Lan Zhan fought to keep them open. Fought to keep looking at Wei Ying as he pleasured him with his lips and tongue. 

Lan Zhan bit his lip against that view, his teeth biting into the lower one and he forced his eyes open. He wanted to see this, he wanted to watch Wei Ying suck his cock with those teary eyes and swollen lips. It was so hot, so irrationally sexy and he moaned almost uncontrollably.

Wei Ying’s mouth was so hot, so wet, so tight as he sucked on him, his head bobbing slowly up and down and up and down as he pulled Lan Zhan higher and higher, his voice vibrating along the hard length in his mouth with his moans and he shifted sliding his hand into his own pants.

Wei Ying couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t deal with the bolts of desire that ran up and down his spine under Lan Zhan’s heavy gaze. That cock in his mouth was so hard, Lan Zhan’s moans were so deep and he gave in to his desire and caressed himself, moaning again as his hand caught on the thick head of his cock.

Lan Zhan gasped in surprise and arousal as he realized Wei Ying was pleasuring himself to sucking his cock. The idea that Wei WuXian would get so turned on by sucking him was itself an almost mind numbing shock of desire that tripped up his spine and he leaned down quickly. 

“AH!?” Wei Ying gasped as he was suddenly pulled around until he was straddling Lan Zhan, his hips over his head as his husband yanked those black pants down, Wei Ying’s hard cock curving into his face. 

He wasted no time before sucking the tip into his mouth, shocking a moan out of Wei WuXian as he froze for a moment unprepared for the position. He knelt there on his hands and knees over Lan Zhan’s head, his mind whiting out with pleasure as that hot, wet mouth dragged along his cock with sucking pulls that made his knees weak and his arms shiver. 

And it was with effort that he forced his eyes back open catching sight of Lan Zhan’s hard, twitching cock in front of him. Almost in relief at something to do, he leaned down with a stilted moan as Lan Zhan shoved his tongue into his weeping slit sucking and swallowing his taste. 

“Ah! Ahhhhmmm!” Wei Ying groaned as he lowered his head pausing to suck at that hard cock again, he swirled his tongue around the head as he willed himself to concentrate. It was much harder than he thought to focus passed the pleasure of Lan Zhan’s mouth but he wanted Lan Zhan to feel good too so he sucked that hot length deeper dragging his tongue up and down that swollen length between his lips, bobbing his head up and down. He did it again matching Lan Zhan’s pace as HanGuang-Jun sucked his cock as well. 

They sucked and moaned and groaned together pulling each other higher and higher desperately trying to pleasure each other despite the haze in their heads. The sensations so incredibly lewd and wet as they chased their endings.

Lan Zhan was a groaning mess as he sucked on Wei Ying, the pressure in his belly swirling tighter and tighter as he tried to breath around the cock almost down his throat. Every move Wei Ying made was blowing his mind to pieces with pleasure but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop sucking and sliding up and down it and he lifted his hands up to grab the ass in his face. He grabbed those firm swells possessively, his fingers digging into the flesh as even more lust and desire arced through him. 

He wanted to come, he wanted to spend himself deep down Wei Ying’s throat but more so was the desire to take him. The desire to bury himself in Wei Ying’s body to drag those breathless moans from his red, swollen lips. Following through with that thought, he pushed Wei Ying forward pressing his hips down to put that tiny, fluttering entrance in front of his mouth. It was pink and wet, already glistening with his slick. 

He leaned up then dragging his tongue along the cleft in his ass moaning into the heated skin as Wei Ying’s answering groan vibrated along his cock. He closed his eyes for a moment as he tasted that warm, wet slick. It was so sweet. Though Wei Ying was undoubtedly male, their bodies were very compatible and Wei Ying had adapted to the sex between them biologically. 

His body now produced thick, slippery slick that tasted like the sweetest honey when he grew aroused and it was just another thing that set his heart racing and burned him straight through with lust.

He loved tasting Wei Ying, loved licking and sucking and filling his mouth with his husband’s honey and he dug his fingers deeper into that sexy ass above him as he enjoyed himself. Lan Zhan dragged his tongue up in a long, wet line over that quivering hole pausing as he rubbed into it. He pressed against that little puckered ring encouraging it to open up under his mouth and he moaned a deep, husky sound as he tasted more of that satiny slick.

Wei Ying was tying his head into knots and Lan Zhan shoved his tongue into that hole as he felt it give easily under his mouth. They shared moments like these every day. Every single day they lost themselves to each other’s pleasure more often than not doing it twice sometimes even 3 times a day and that hole opened up to him quickly swallowing his thick thrusting tongue.

Lan Zhan moved then sliding in and out of his husband’s body, sucking at the edge of his rim, rubbing his teeth lightly into that delicate skin, shivering as Wei Ying released a low, wild moan, his mouth pausing on his cock as he trembled in pleasure. Wei Ying pushed back into that thrusting tongue, fucking himself into Lan Zhan’s mouth, his breath coming faster and he wrapped his hand around the impossibly hard length in front of him simply unable to focus long enough to keep sucking his husband’s cock.

“AHHHH…..AMMMNN….LA…..LAN…...AAHHH!” Wei Ying was breathless, his loud, velvety moan filling the jingshi and Lan Zhan had a moment of odd clarity as he thanked the stars that he had put up a silencing talisman the night before. The jingshi was fairly close to the hanshi and he simply did not have the face to look at his brother or his uncle with Wei Ying’s pleasure on his lips. 

In all honesty, he should just keep that talisman up since they could never seem to get their hands off each other regardless of time or place. And Lan Zhan followed that lick with another sucking moan as he shoved his tongue into Wei Ying’s clutching ass again sliding his fingers down to slip them into that wet hole as well. 

He pushed them in quickly, stretching them and thrusting them in and out with his tongue as he opened that tight little hole up for him. It gave easily under his attentions and soon enough he was pushing 3 fingers in and out, moaning against that ass as Wei Ying shivered and trembled and gasped under his hands. 

“LAN….ANNNGH….AHHHH LAN…..ZHAN…..FU…..FUCK…...ME!!!!” Wei Ying gasped brokenly as everything became too much, his cock was too hard, his body too empty. He needed Lan Zhan, needed Lan Zhan to take him with those heavy, punching thrusts that would pin him to the floor and blow him to pieces.

And it seemed like Lan Zhan could take it no longer either. He slipped out from under Wei Ying and moved to kneel behind him, one hand grabbing that ass again with those firm, possessive fingers as he positioned himself before he bucked. He slammed his hips in to smack his ass with the thrust yanking his body back only to do it again. And then he did it again and then again.

He set a punishing rhythm between them, tugging his body out quickly only to pitch his hips back in even deeper. He angled himself right into that sensitive bud he knew would tear the heavy, gasping moans that he loved from Wei Ying’s throat. 

“AHHHH!!!! ANNNNNGGGHH!” Wei Ying moaned long and loud, his arms collapsing under him as sparkling lights bloomed across his sight. His long lashes trembled as his beautiful grey eyes closed simply unable to stay open any longer under Lan Zhan’s heavy thrusts. He was a moaning mess, loud, breathless pants and groans falling from his lips in abandon as he lost his mind under his husband and his bucking body.

Lan Zhan fucked him hard and fast, chasing their ending with wild passion as he leaned forward. He wrapped his arm around Wei Ying’s waist, grabbing his dripping cock as he dragged his fist up and down it in time with his constant, rapid thrusts. In and out and in deep and out and back in deeper still slamming into that sensitive little bud over and over again.

Before, back when they had nothing between them but those stolen nights, each time had been slow and long with breathless kisses and low sighing moans, the weight of those unspoken words dragging the moment out between them as they clung desperately to each other, desperate to spend as much time in each other’s arms as their stolen nights had allowed them. They had made love for hours, long, slow love that almost suffocated them with all that nameless weight that they saw reflected in each other’s eyes. 

They coveted those stolen nights lost in each other, knowing each one was the last, knowing that never in that life would they have a chance to be together, to make love again. They had used their bodies to express the shape of their hearts with melancholy and sorrow as mirrors to their passion. 

They had loved each other for as long as those dark nights had allowed, love trapped in their eyes and tears caught on their tongues under all those words they couldn’t say. Those nights had been so, so heavy between them as they used their bodies to speak when they couldn’t form words. The sex they had had during those stolen nights had been so much more, so much more than just pleasure, so much so that even the satisfaction they found in each other’s bodies paled in comparison to the vortex of emotions that whirled around them, so deep and dark. 

Even the first time they had loved each other in the grass after Guanyin Temple had been rife with those very same emotions but a certain levity had taken them as well. The relief at having confessed their feelings making that moment sweet and light with Wei Ying’s wild laughter. Guanyin Temple had cleared the air around them, those sparkling eyes bright and bold as Wei Ying gave himself over to Lan Zhan and his desires right there in the grass careless of where they were. Nothing had mattered then, nothing but the richness of their feelings so fresh and new in their eyes. 

Tonight however, words had spilled over filling the very air they breathed in the jingshi as they drifted in the freedom of their feelings. Words coming easily to their mouths with the calm certainty that they would have each other. That there would be a next time. That they would belong to each other for this life and the next. That certainty making it even easier to share all those words in their hearts. This new honesty between them was a priceless gift and Lan Zhan’s heart swelled with it. Every word of love, every tender moment with Wei Ying painted his life with bright colors as though Wei WuXian had thrown a rainbow across his eyes. 

And Lan Zhan pitched his hips even deeper, dedicating himself to Wei Ying’s pleasure as he felt a pressure pull tight, low in his body and he knew dimly, tonight he would not last. The rush of love from Wei Ying’s confession, the tenderness in his eyes and those gentle kisses had frayed his control. Tonight he was not able to be soft, tonight he was completely incapable of slowing down and he tugged the cock in his hand faster, matching his punching thrusts as he dragged Wei Ying over the edge with him.

“AHHHH!! LAHHHHN ZHHHAAAAAA!!! ANNNNGH!” Wei Ying gasped hoarsely as his body pulled tight like a bow, arching under him as Lan Zhan moaned a deep, husky groan unable to resist Wei Ying’s clutching body that had seized up around his and he threw his hips forward as deep as he could, his release washing over him just as Wei Ying covered his fist with thick, white lines. 

They froze together for a moment, trembling and shuddering as their climaxes tapered off and Lan Zhan tugged out slowly, errant shivers trailing up and down his spine as he flopped down next to Wei Ying, pulling his hot body back against his languidly. 

He nuzzled into Wei Ying’s sweat soaked nape as he snuggled back into Lan Zhan’s arms with a tired, almost shaky sigh. He pressed his body into the warm, broad one at his back with another soft hum as he drifted in and out of that hazy afterglow that came when Lan Zhan loved him well. 

They laid there like that, stretched out on the floor of the jingshi as the candles sputtered out leaving them in a soft darkness as they curled into each other’s arms and Lan Zhan pressed his nose firmly into Wei Ying’s hair, the smell of bonfires suffusing his nose as he felt sleep tease at the edges of his awareness.

He was just starting to drift wrapped around Wei Ying’s warm body as a comfortable cloud of satisfaction settled around him. This moment, this space and time was absolutely perfect. Wei Ying was love in his arms, his tired body pressed along his everywhere they could touch and Lan Zhan sighed a deep sigh of contentment. He was so happy, so unbearably happy to be alive, to be loved, to love Wei Ying.  


He was almost asleep right there on the jingshi floor with the warm scent of bonfires in his nose as he blinked blearily for a moment, Wei Ying’s soft, drowsy voice calling to him. That voice he loved so much was so quiet and hoarse from his pleasure as he spoke.

“Lan Zhan….I…..love you so, so much….”

And Lan Zhan pulled him impossibly closer, his broad hand rising to turn Wei Ying’s cheek to press a long, soft kiss to his lips as they laid there in the darkness. They were no longer bound by those stolen nights or those unspeakable words and he smiled into that sweet, hot mouth. He quietly marveled at how easily the next words came to him and he spoke with his own deep, hoarse voice, tenderness and affection falling from his lips to Wei Ying’s as he murmured gently. 

“Mn….I love you too Wei Ying” 

And those words would flow freely between them for the rest of their lives through this life and the next and the next.

-FIN-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^.~ Thank you so much to everyone who stuck it out with me and all this angst lol I cannot believe how many people stopped by to read this. This was such a labor of love. It took me hours to write each chapter and the whole thing topped out at 70 pages 👀 so I rly am so happy you guys gave it a chance. I love WangXian to bits and pieces and I hope you guys enjoyed this story. I rly hope I did them justice and I'd love to read your feedback, thoughts, critiques, kudos or whatever~ 
> 
> Btw guys I have a twitter if anyone wants to come say hi lol I love geeking out about mdzs and yoi :)  
> Check out Brie (@brieeze01): https://twitter.com/brieeze01?s=09
> 
> Love,  
> Brie


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